Empty Chairs at Empty Tables
by Ishafel
Summary: When Draco Malfoy was nineteen years old, he betrayed everyone and everything that had ever trusted or loved him... Now, after ten years, he is back. Draco/ Harry slash (eventually) also Ron/ Hermione
1. Broken Wings

_(Characters property of JK Rowling & co.  although I would be happy to take Draco off their hands.  Story by Ishafel, copyrighted 10/31/02.  Postwar fic.)_

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

When Draco Malfoy was nineteen years old, he betrayed everyone and everything that had ever trusted or loved him.  Since his graduation from Hogwarts, he had led a small squad of Resistance fighters, made up solely of the children of DeathEaters and former DeathEaters, men and women whose loyalty was to him personally and not to the Cause at all.  He sold them to Voldemort, many of them to torture or death, for little more than the proverbial thirty pieces of silver.  He leaked information that nearly led to the capture of Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, simply because he had grown to love the taste of treachery.  He killed his own father, a man at whose side he now fought, with an Unforgivable Curse.  He sold the Malfoy estates, property that had been in his family for thirty generations, for a pittance, and threw his mother out on the street in the dead of winter.  And in the end, as such men do, he turned on his master.  It was generally believed that he had used some new variation of an Exploding Curse on the Dark Lord.  Dumbledore and those few men who served most closely knew the truth:  no spell he could have cast would have harmed the Dark Lord at the height of his power.  Malfoy had torn Voldemort to pieces with his bare hands.

Afterward, when he had destroyed the last thing in all of England to have faith in him, Draco Malfoy ran.  He left behind a trail of blood, a great deal of it his own, and it should have been easy enough for the Aurors to track him, for Harry, the most powerful Auror ever trained, to track him.  But in ten long years he had not been heard from or of, and many thought that he was dead.  It made a certain amount of sense:  that he had stumbled away from the remains of Voldemort's headquarters, and, already  mortally wounded, bled to death in some deserted wood.  That he had attempted to Apparate, and ended by splinching himself.  Only Harry and a few others knew the truth, that Malfoy's trail ended at the top of the highest tower of the Dark Lord's fortress, as if he had simply sprouted wings and flown away.

After seven years the Ministry of Magic rescinded their exile of him, declared an amnesty for all servants of the Dark Lord, though there had been few enough survivors.  Malfoy did not come.  There were sightings of him, but they were always unverifiable and had grown rarer and rarer over the years.  He had been seen in a Muggle hospital in the worst part of London, only a few weeks after Voldemort's fall, clearly on his deathbed.  In a jungle in the Amazon, living among a tribe of native wizards who spoke no recognizable language.  In Russia, at a Muggle nightclub, with a stunningly beautiful women on his arm.  Playing Seeker for a farm Quidditch team in Australia, half crippled by his injuries.  Begging for food in a slum in Calcutta.  Working in a field in South Africa.  Since the amnesty he had not been seen at all.  Harry had been always a step behind him, and now he was totally lost.  

Until today, when the call had come in.  A Muggle, an American airline stewardess, believed she had their international terrorist seated on a flight from Kennedy Airport in New York to Heathrow in London.  He seemed like such a gentleman, she said, that it was hard to believe he could be what they said he was.  She had recognized him immediately--no mistaking that bone structure--despite the fact that he was thin and tired looking, his hair and eyes the wrong color.  

Harry did not truly believe that it could be Malfoy, but the timing was perfect.  They had recently begun a rumor that his mother was dying, a last desperate hope of luring him into the open.  It was hard to say why it was so important to him that Malfoy be found when there was no hope any longer of bringing him to justice, but he knew that he could never retire his Auror's badge until he knew just how the other man had evaded him so long.  And no one in England could truly relax--least of all Hermione, the youngest Minister of Magic in two hundred years--until they knew whether Malfoy was a threat to the country's security.  Harry's job was to bring him in, so that he could be "de-briefed."  If, during that time, Malfoy resisted and received a few bruises, so much the better.  Harry held Malfoy personally responsible for the deaths of countless witches and wizards, among them Percy Weasley.  They could not--legally--make him pay.  But they could still make him suffer.

Harry had been waiting for more than three hours for Malfoy's flight.  It had been a long time since he'd been in a Muggle airport--since he'd lived with the Dursleys, and gone to pick up Aunt Marge.  How old had he been, that last time?  Fifteen, perhaps.   Impossible to imagine Draco Malfoy choosing to fly when he might have Apparated.  Impossible to imagine Malfoy in such a drab setting, Malfoy as he had last seen him, face very white against the darkness of his robes, mouth twisted in a sneer, eyes so light they were nearly translucent, and the Dark Lord's hand on his shoulder.  The last time he had seen Malfoy had been the day the man had announced he had "changed allegiances," with all the ease that most changed robes.  

The planes were very loud despite the soundproofed glass.  Harry had spent most of his time in the country, near Hogwarts, when he was not tracking Malfoy.  He had been in London perhaps a dozen times since the war ended, and every time he hated the city more.  But, finally, it was time for Malfoy's flight to arrive.  The gate had been cleared; there were no civilians present.  No journalists, thank God.  They still respected Dumbledore, and no one wanted to risk this exchange going sour.  Malfoy was the most dangerous man in the world, at present, and one of the most powerful.  

The plane was drifting slowly toward the gate.  Harry could almost sense Malfoy's presence on it.  He wondered after so much time if he would even recognize the man, without the platinum hair and eyes that were Malfoy's most notable features.  Muggles were coming down the ramp, now; ordinary people his team was dragging back to safety.  And finally there was Malfoy, near the end.  He was moving slowly, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the changing light.  He had only one suitcase, a small, beat-up black duffel bag.  He wore Muggle clothes, jeans so faded they were almost white, a dark blue sweater, and his hair was darkened by nature or artifice or magic to a tawny gold, his shadowed eyes an indeterminate muddy color that might have been blue or brown.  He was undeniably Draco Malfoy.  He looked ordinary, human.  He did not look like a monster.

Harry could pinpoint the exact moment when Malfoy realized something was wrong.  His head came up, his eyes flashed silver, his body tensed.  There was, about him, the look of a panicked animal.  Harry moved to meet him, out of the shadows.  "Malfoy," he said.  "I'm afraid I'm going to have to detain you on behalf of the Ministry of Magic."

The other man stepped back, dropped the suitcase slung over his shoulder, and put his hands up.  "I'm sorry, there must be some mistake.  I think you have the wrong man, sir."

Harry slowed his advance, a little thrown by the words, and Malfoy took another big step back.  "Look, Malfoy," he began, hoping his voice sounded soothing.  "It's okay.  We just want to ask you a few questions.  No harm, no foul."

"Right," Malfoy's voice was a little wild, a muscle jumping in his cheek.  His eyes looked like ice, and his face was white despite his tan.  Harry took two more steps forward, and Malfoy took one small one back and then stopped.  It felt absurdly choreographed, as if they were dancing.  

Harry put his hand out, as if he were trying to reassure a nervous dog, and Malfoy growled, "Don't touch me, Potter.  I don't let anyone touch me."

"It's okay, Malfoy," Harry repeated, letting his hand fall.

"It's not okay!  What happened to your thrice-damned amnesty, hmm, Potter?  What happened to 'Come home, Malfoy, all your sins will be forgiven?'"

"We just want to talk to you, Malfoy, we won't try to hold you.  You have my word of honor on that."

For a moment Harry thought he was going to give in.  And then behind Harry one of the men took a step forward and he could see Malfoy was panicking for real.  "I can't trust you, Potter, I can't trust anyone.  Surely you must see that?"  And then there was a flash of light, and where Malfoy had been a peregrine falcon flapped great tawny wings tinted silver 'round the edges.  Harry could see that it was in trouble.  One of its wings didn't move properly.  Low as the ceiling was, it would never be able to outfly their crossbows.  After a moment the falcon became Malfoy again, on his knees before Harry.  "I swore I would never hurt anyone again, Potter."  And he held out his wrists.

Harry moved then, very fast.  He dragged Malfoy's arms behind his back and cuffed him tightly.  Malfoy gulped for air once, whether in fear or from the pressure on his bad shoulder it was hard to say.  After, he went limp, so that only Harry's grip on his wrists held him upright.  Harry's second-in-command, Lieutenant Midgen, ran forward to search Malfoy for weapons.  

"He's clean," she announced, sounding disappointed.  One of the other officers hand already upended Malfoy's duffel bag.  There was very little in it:  only his wand, an envelope with a small wad of dollars in American Muggle money, Muggle clothing, a book called _The Perfect Storm and apparently about an actual storm, and the Malfoy signet ring.  Midgen emptied his wallet into a plastic bin:  perhaps twenty Galleons, a few more Muggle bills, an American passport in the name of Michael Drake, but with Malfoy's picture and a Boston address.  A Muggle credit card in the same name.  A crumpled photograph of a woman, taken with a Muggle camera, so badly faded that her features were impossible to discern.  It was all a bit depressing, because it was almost certainly everything Malfoy owned in the world._

Harry let go of Malfoy's wrists and let him fall.  He finished, sitting on the filthy rug with his face pressed against his knees.  It went against everything Harry believed in to feel any sympathy for the man, but he seemed so utterly defeated it was hard not to.  "Get up," he told him, poking him experimentally in the ribs with the toe of his boot, and eventually Malfoy did.  He stood, swaying a little, eyes closed.  Harry grabbed his left arm and Midgen his right, and between them they marched him out, nodding to the grateful Muggle security guards, all of whom believed they belonged to a special anti-terror strike force.  Malfoy stumbled once, as they moved through the automatic doors toward the road.  "Open your eyes, idiot," Harry hissed in his ear, and after a moment he felt the other man begin to move more naturally.  The car from the Ministry was waiting, right where it was supposed to be, and Malfoy offered no resistance when they shoved him inside.  Harry got in after him, while Midgen went around to the other side.

Malfoy slumped forward, so that his forehead was pressed against the front seat, and shivered.  He reminded Harry of a dragon bound in chains of admantine, a hawk with its wings clipped, sure to die in captivity.  Hard to remember, now, that this was the man who'd destroyed the Dark Lord, led so many of their people to captivity.  Hard to imagine someone so fragile could be so ruthless.  But Malfoy's sweater had ridden up, and Harry could see his wrists.  There were scars all along his arms, a shiny ridge of tissue under the cuffs.  He'd been bound before, and not by smooth steel.  Knifemarks like veins stretched from wrist to elbow.  Self-inflected, those:  it was a common enough reaction among those who had fought Voldemort, though he'd not expected Malfoy to bear them.  There was no sign of the Dark Mark on Malfoy's fair skin; it appeared to have been cut away.  Not so fragile, then.  Not if he had been willing to do that.

The car moved smoothly and soundlessly out into traffic, surrounded by other Ministry cars as if it truly contained a human prisoner.  Malfoy didn't look up, didn't seem interested in the changes ten years and wrought on London.  Harry could see that he'd lost weight, more weight than he could really afford.  The brown gold hair curling over his collar was unfashionably long, though both color and style rather suited him.  The collar of his tee shirt was frayed.  He looked as if he'd been living rough, difficult as it was to imagine.  Draco Malfoy, who until he was seventeen had barely been capable of dressing himself.  Even later, in the Resistance, he had had a reputation as a dandy:  always immaculately dressed, robes pressed, nails manicured, hair groomed.  Now he looked as if he'd put on the first clothes that had come to hand. 

The war had changed things for everyone, of course; it had changed Harry's life as much as Malfoy's.  Gone, his dream of playing Quidditch for England.  Though Quidditch had started up again as soon as the war ended, there were too many other things that needed doing for him to spend his life playing games.  His work as an Auror took priority, and by the time he was done the task he had set himself--to round up and neutralize all those who had fought with the Dark Lord--he would be far too old to play professionally.  He didn't mind that so much anymore; so few men and women of his generation remained that the team was made up mainly of teenagers.  He would have felt out of place, if he had managed to bypass his guilt and his conscience to take up the Seeker's position.  It would be twenty-five years at least before England had another international standard team.   The loss of the brilliant young Oliver Wood, in particular, had been felt throughout the world.  

It was not Quidditch Harry mourned, as he sat beside the silent Malfoy.  It was not even the men and women--friends, all--who had been lost in battle, or even the senseless deaths of so many civilians.  Those deaths, while tragic, had not been his fault (though he hoped they still weighed on Malfoy, the man personally responsible for so many tragedies).  For Harry, that pain had begun to dull.  He was grieving now for himself.  He had imagined, once, that by twenty-eight he would have had a family of his own.  A wife, preferably petite and redheaded, and a few redheaded children.  And a house, cozy and small and cluttered as the one he had grown up in had not been.  A house down the street from Ron and Hermione, because in his dreams there was no happier ending than for the three of them to be as close as humanly possible.  Instead he had a half-furnished apartment he had not seen in weeks, a handful of dates with women he barely knew, best friends who could not stand to be in a room together.  

When the car pulled up outside the Ministry, he grabbed Malfoy more roughly than he meant to.  The man made no effort to walk, and Harry was happy enough to drag him inside.  The receptionist--he'd been out with her once or twice, come to think of it, but couldn't remember her first name--moved to block him.  "The minister asks that you wait here.  She's in a meeting, but she left these papers for you and she asked me to tell you she'll be down shortly."  

Harry put out his hand to take the file, letting go of Malfoy, who collapsed.  Harry turned, astonished, to catch him, and dropped the folder.  As he and Rowan? Or Stephanie? bent to pick up the papers, the door banged open, and Ronald Weasley blew in from the street like a cyclone.  He was so angry Harry could almost see rage rolling off him in red waves, like an old Muggle cartoon.  He sent Rowan/ Stephanie/ Elspeth running for Security and moved to confront Ron, but his best friend shoved him out of the way so hard he spun into the wall.  Momentarily dizzied, he missed what happened next.

Draco tried, when they pulled him out of the car, to stand, but his legs had turned to rubber.  He wasn't worried, particularly; this happened to him frequently of late and it was not as if he were on the run at the moment.  They dragged him into the lobby of the Ministry of Magic, and it looked the same as it had when he had been there last, a big echoing room with a domed ceiling supported by pillars.   The receptionist came to meet them and Draco waited peacefully, letting Potter hold him up.  Then the arm under his shoulder was gone, and he fell, splitting his cheekbone open on the floor because it had not occurred to him to put his arms out to catch himself until rather too late.  It was nice and cool where he lay, and he rather hoped they'd let him stay there.  He pressed the undamaged side of his face to the tile of the inlaid seal and closed his eyes.  Papers drifted down around him and he wondered hazily if Potter's Seeker reflexes had deteriorated as badly as his own.

A crash, and footsteps, and a heel driving hard into his ribs.  He stayed where he was; as if he had a choice, flat on his stomach on the Ministry's seal.   When it came down again, breaking bone, he wondered if he had made a mistake trusting Potter at the airport.  Perhaps it would have been better to fight, to have it over quickly and cleanly.  He had not really understood, when he had decided to come back, that everyone would hate him so.  It was one thing to know it, intellectually, and another thing to experience it as he was now.  The pain was getting to him, and almost without thinking he willed it away, forced his heartrate to slow to normal, his breathing to regulate.  He was master of himself still.   

Potter was yelling, now.  "Ron, no!"  (how clichéd) and the heel drove down one final time, and then he could hear the two of them tearing into each other.  He had forgotten all about the Weasel, but now he remembered.  "Ron!  He's not worth it!  Get yourself under control!"  He remembered the sound the older brother had made, dying.  What had his name been?  It didn't matter; he'd been fool enough to trust Draco, fool enough to turn his back.   In the end he'd meant nothing, his death a small sacrifice in the name of the greater good.  Draco could not even remember what he had felt when he'd killed him.  Had he enjoyed it?  He rather hoped he had, given the price he was paying now.   

The door banged again, and he risked opening his eyes, although he was afraid to try and raise his head.  What he saw made him groan.  A tall man, all tangled white hair and beard and swirling robes.  Dumbledore.  He was in for it now.

Dumbledore said, very gently, "Mr. Weasley.  Please, calm yourself.  Rowan, darling, we won't be needing Security after all.  Run and fetch a mediwizard.  Harry, please check and see if Mr. Malfoy is still breathing."  Said it with rather less expression than one would say, "Check and see that the water is boiling."

Draco opened his mouth to say something cutting and witty, realized he was still facedown on the floor and that he had bitten his tongue and it was bleeding, and decided not to bother.  Potter's cool, practiced fingers slid under his jaw, checking his pulse, and Potter said, "He's breathing."

Draco would have stopped, to spite him, but he was beginning to really hurt.  Bitterly, he reflected that nothing had changed.  Potter and Weasley were still golden and he was still trash.  Dumbledore's brand of snobbery, while less common, was equally rigid—he had dislike Draco on first acquaintance (though admittedly Draco had deserved it) simply because of his last name.  Even during Draco's time on the "right" side, Dumbledore had never been friendly.  Malfoys were barely acceptable as allies, in the worst of times; they were never to be friends.  He remembered hearing Dumbledore say in that same tranquil tone, "The enemy of one's enemy may be useful, Mr. Potter."

Draco had been useful, if not precisely as Dumbledore had expected.  Like any Malfoy, he had come to resent being used.  But he had killed their Dark Lord for them, ended their futile little war.  He had saved a hundred thousand lives, and they begrudged him the hundred he had not saved, merely because he had had to kill them himself.  If he were not so busy holding the floor still, he would have gotten up and straightened Dumbledore out.  Well, he thought sadly, no doubt he would have plenty of second chances.  


	2. Close Your Eyes and Think of England

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND THINK OF ENGLAND

_(Characters property of JK Rowling & co. although I would be happy to take Draco off their hands. Story by Ishafel, copyrighted 10/31/02. Postwar fic.)_

He supposed that the mediwizards came, then, but he was hazy on what was happening. Someone cut away his sweater and shirt; icy hands touched his broken back and ruined shoulder. He bit his lip through, trying not to cry out, and someone gently patted his head. Not comforting, exactly, but he knew it had been well-meant. Rather as one reassured a dog in pain. "He's in shock," from above him, and then, "internal bleeding. We're going to lose him unless…" He did not remember passing out. It had been years since he had been truly unconscious, since the time he'd woken to find himself on the floor of Voldemort's campaign room, surrounded by shreds of the Dark Lord small enough to fit in a shoebox. A dangerous luxury, fainting there at the Ministry surrounded by so many of his remaining enemies, but his life did not mean to him what it once had.

Sirius stood between the beds, looking down at the boy–man, now–responsible for so many deaths. Hard to say for sure, but he thought Draco Malfoy was regaining consciousness. It had been a long battle, but in the end they had saved him. A shame that they had fought only to (more than likely) spare him for the Kiss. Harry, sprawled on the other bed in Sirius' guest room, was exhausted, so deeply asleep that even the light of Sirius' wand had not woken him. He looked much younger when he slept, his arm shading his face, his hair tangled, still dressed in ragged jeans. Malfoy, on the other hand–had he ever been that young? No innocence there; even on the edge of sleep there was a guarded quality to him. It might have been pain, that made him lie so unnaturally stiff and still, but Sirius rather thought it was not. Self preservation, the result of ten years spent hunted and alone, and twenty before that in his father's not so gentle care. 

The silver eyes were opening, Sirius noted, the pupils so dilated that he wondered for a moment if they had somehow missed a concussion. But no, they shrank like a cat's when he turned the light of his wand toward them. Cold eyes, but almost ordinary in the half-light: wide and tired and aware and confused and _human_. Malfoy had tried to change several times through the night, flickering from falcon form to human with the ease of long practice, as if he no longer even needed to think to make the change. He had been eerily silent in human form, but the falcon had screamed when they touched it, as if its mind had no room for the desperate control the man exerted. Eventually the line had blurred, until they were no longer sure if it was the man or the bird they treated. 

"What is this place?" Malfoy asked carefully. His voice was rusty as if from overuse, but sane.

"It's my apartment." And when Malfoy blinked up at him, "I'm Sirius Black, Harry's godfather. We didn't know what else to do with you; it would have started a riot if we'd taken you to St. Mungo's."

"Right," Malfoy agreed. "I have to admit, I thought I'd wake up in Azkaban, if I woke up at all. Why didn't I?"

Sirius looked away. Evil he might be, but even Malfoy did not truly deserve Azkaban. "They still need information from you. Because you're an Animagus, they can't risk locking you up, it's the Kiss or nothing. And after you've had the Kiss…"

"There won't be enough left in my mind to interest even a Gryffindor. I take it you're _that_ Sirius Black, then."

Sirius choked back a laugh. "Yes, rather." He held out his hand and after a moment Malfoy took it. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Better than I have in a long time, in truth," Malfoy answered. "Did someone…?"

"They fixed your shoulder, yes. No sense having you in unnecessary pain, hmm? I think you'll find you can fly now."

Malfoy looked up at him, expressionlessly. "Can, or will? Come on, Black, you know what's waiting for me. Three, four days of interrogation at most, and then the Kiss. I'll be lucky to ever see the sun again."

"Did you expect anything else, Malfoy? Honestly? Did you think the amnesty went so far as that? They executed his supporters before. This is meant to be merciful, and there are some who protest that it is too kind. Ron Weasley is one of them; he's fought long and hard to have all those who once bore the Dark Mark put to death. You were free and clear. Why in hell did you ever come back?"

"My mother–"

"Don't. That rumor was a lie and you know it. Harry's good at what he does but not good enough to fool you. You came back for reasons of your own and you knew what it was you risked."

Malfoy looked past him, past the lump of Harry asleep in the next bed, out the window at the night. "You were in love with her once, weren't you? A long time ago?"

Sirius didn't have to ask whom it was he meant. It had not been so very long ago to him. "Yeah, I was." 

Malfoy made an effort to sit up and couldn't quite manage it. Sirius moved to help him without a second thought, propping him carefully against the pillows and sitting beside him on the edge of the bed. "Thank you," Malfoy said with a sigh. "I hate this." He coughed a little and Sirius bent solicitously closer. Malfoy's mouth on his took him utterly by surprise. He tasted of blood and chocolate and desperation, just as Narcissa had so many years ago. Sirius closed his eyes without a second thought; he was unimaginably lost and for a long time unsure of who it was in the bed with him. But in the end he ran out of breath. He opened his eyes and saw he'd been making love to the wrong Malfoy. The hand on his shoulder was stronger than he'd expected, there would be no getting free without a fight, and Draco (impossible to think of him as Malfoy under the circumstances) had positioned his other hand much lower. Sirius froze.

"You want my mother," Malfoy's voice was breathless, but hard as tempered steel. "I can be like her. Enough so you'll never know the difference. Close your eyes again, Sirius. I can be anyone you've ever dreamt of making love to. Narcissa? The mudblood Minister? Your boy Harry? His mother, the saint? I can be anyone you want, Sirius, any way you want it. Go ahead, make it rape. I'll fight you, if that's what you want. Or if you want, I can do it to you. Is that what you want, Siri? Would you like to call me James Potter? Lucius? Snape? Lupin-the-Werewolf? Tell me what you want, and I'll make all your fantasies come true. " 

No trace of the weakness or weariness he'd shown earlier. And Sirius, Merlin help him, was tempted. Not because he wanted _that_, but because he wanted–it was a spell. It had to be. Dark magic indeed. Sirius jerked back, eyes wild, gasping for breath. "What did you do?"

"Did you like it?" Draco sounded as if he were purring. "Let me make you happy, Sirius. You're hard. I can tell, I can always tell."

"And what? You think I'll let you go, if you make me happy? What would your father have said if he knew you were playing the oh-so-willing whore for me, child? What kind of behavior is this for a Malfoy?"

Draco, dryly, "I think you're forgetting that I killed my father myself. What makes you think I'd care?" 

"You've done this before, played the whore. You're good at it. A Slytherin does what it takes?"

And Draco answered him. "Do you know, I think my father would have approved. He would have said, 'Close your eyes, son, and think of England.' He sold his soul, you know, to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Did you really think he would balk at selling my body? I am good at playing the whore because I've had plenty of practice. I can be anyone, anything, that you want, and all you have to do is give me five minutes start afterward."

"No," Sirius told him. "I will not do it. I don't want you, no matter how good an actor you are." Draco wasn't looking at him anymore, he was looking at Harry. And Harry, Merlin help them, was looking back, green eyes wide and horrified, disgust all too plainly stamped on his expressive face. Harry, who had lived by his principles his whole life, because he had never needed to do anything else. Harry did not understand desperation because he had never felt it. 

"Never mind, Black," Malfoy said without looking at him. "I can see that this was a mistake. Forget I said anything."

And Sirius dropped a pitying hand onto the man's shoulder, because he did understand, and almost even admired, that kind of focus. Malfoy did what had to be done, and he had won them the war and now he was fighting for his life with the same desperate fervor.

"What time is it?" Harry asked at last.

Sirius squinted--his eyes were not what they had once been--and checked his Muggle watch. "Half past four, the car'll be here in three hours. We might as well get up. Harry, want to help me get breakfast? Malfoy, there are towels in the bathroom, if you want to shower, and soap, shampoo, that kind of thing. Robes on the chair should fit you, and your suitcase is there in the corner."

"Right," Malfoy said, more cheerfully than was probably wise. Sirius turned and went out, Harry behind him, silent as a shadow. They went out in the hall and Sirius pushed the door shut and stopped abruptly, holding up his hand to forestall Harry's questions. They stood for an endless moment in the darkness, listening to the silence from the bedroom. A whispered word that might have been a spell or a curse, and the window gave a terrific crack and began to howl. Sirius choked back a laugh, and next minute the door was flung open and Malfoy stood blinking into the darkness, cradling his burnt fingers against his chest. "I give up, Black, Potter. I promise to behave if you turn it off. You can't blame a man for trying, right?"

Sirius turned and Malfoy snorted. "Trusting sort you are, hmm? Why didn't you just tell me the window was spell-locked? From the outside?"

Sirius grinned, and even Harry looked amused. "Would you have listened?"

Malfoy grinned back. "No. But you didn't know that."

Harry answered. "Oh, but he does. He would have done the same himself, you know. I give you my word, Malfoy, that I will do what I can to see you get free. I don't like Hermione's false amnesty any better than I like you. But there are certain answers we must have from you. I _will_ have this done legally."

Malfoy whispered, "Then you know?" But seeing Harry's eyebrows furrow, he shook his head. "Never mind. A passing fancy. I'm going to try the shower."

When they were all seated at the small round table in Sirius' kitchen, Malfoy, looking very much his old self in Harry's second best robes (black, and no doubt generally reserved for funerals) said brightly, " I'm a former DeathEater on the run, of course, and Potter, here, is an Auror, and what's her name is the Minister of Magic. What does the Weasel do? Does he have many children yet? Have you been to any Hogwarts reunions, Potter?"

Harry sighed. Hard to remember that strangling suspects without trial might very well get his Auror's license revoked. "Ron Weasley--" and then stopped, looking over at Sirius. Because the truth was that Ron, for all his strategic brilliance and extravagant dreams, was a failure and a drunk. He had not been sober the war had ended, as if he could find peace only in the bottom of a bottle. Hermione and Harry had all but given up on saving him; Hermione could not even bear to be near him. She had always, Harry thought as he absently spread jam on his toast, been allergic to the smell of failure. "Ron does all right," he said shortly. "He isn't married yet. Ginny is, though. Remember his sister? She married an Irishman, Seamus Finnegan, from our year. She plays Chaser for the Irish national Quidditch team, though she's just taken a year off to have a baby. Her brothers have trouble deciding whom to root for when we play Ireland, though they're secretly very proud of her, of course. Seamus works as a consultant for Gringott's. Pansy Parkinson was married to Malcolm Bladdock for a while, though I heard she's chucked it and is living with Cho Chang."

Malfoy raised an elegant eyebrow. "I thought Cho Chang--." 

Sirius watched with interest as Harry turned a brilliant scarlet. He had always wondered who it was that had ended the relationship between Harry and the Chang girl. He started to ask, "Is that why--" 

Harry interrupted him hastily. "That was over a long time ago."

"I was going to say," Malfoy smirked, "that I thought Cho Chang fought for our side in the war. Why so touchy, Potter?"

"You mean she fought for Voldemort," Harry asked, startled.

"Right," Malfoy confirmed. "I expect that's where she met Pansy."

Harry filed that away for future reference. The truth was, not all DeathEaters had been given the Dark Mark. It was just possible that Cho might have been…she had been gone for a lot of the war. Pansy, on the other hand, had an impeccable alibi. She had been one of those Malfoy had betrayed, had spent the duration of the war in a cell. Looking up, he discovered that Malfoy had eaten all the toast, including the piece off Harry's own plate, and was beginning on the sausages.

"That's what happens when you take your eye off a DeathEater," Sirius said, and Malfoy laughed out loud and then tried to cover it with a cough.

"Who else is left," he asked, finally, softly as if it hurt him to show even that much humanity. "You, me, the Weasel, the Mudblood, the Hufflepuff lieutenant, Cho Chang, Pansy, and Seamus. Is that everyone?"

"From our year?" Harry fought to keep his voice even. "Crabbe. That's it. Nine of us, and there were how many? Forty, more or less, when we started. And that's true of every Hogwarts class from our years there. Hard to say what will become of the wizarding world, when three-fourths of our generation is dead."

"We all do what we must," Sirius said quietly. "We will survive this, too."

Malfoy pushed his plate away. "Yes," he echoed drearily. "We do what we must, no matter what the cost. That's why your lot don't execute DeathEaters, isn't it, Potter? Give them the Kiss to keep them docile, then use them in your government breeding program? How much will I be worth at stud, I wonder? Don't worry, Potter. It's not your fault. I might do the same were I in your place."

Harry managed a smile. "You'll be worth a bloody fortune, Malfoy, and you know it. You're young, handsome, and powerful. Even Sirius was panting after you." He had surprised them both with that one, he saw. Sirius was definitely blushing, and though it was hard to tell it looked as Malfoy might be as well. "Point for Potter," he added, miming catching the Snitch. Things were finally looking up for _someone_ even if it wasn't Malfoy_. _

Granger--the Mudblood Minister--looked devastated when she saw him, as if her belief in evil had just been renewed. Draco noted that she had grown up to be a very pretty woman, rather surprising given how awkward she had been at nineteen. There was something about her that made him think of women in pornographic magazines: schoolmistresses, librarians and nurses, prim witches with their hair in buns who wound up being fantastic in bed. He'd been disappointed when he'd arrived at Hogwarts and found that Dumbledore's faculty and staff were anything but stereotypical.

His father would have been horrified, a Mudblood and a woman running the Ministry.  Draco rather suspected that she ran it well, too, or at least ran it firmly.  She was no Cornelius Fudge, to play the marionette to Dumbledore's puppetmaster.  Most of the decisions of the last ten years, from the "amnesty" that wasn't, to the improvement in magical-muggle relations, and the standardization of magical education laws, were clearly her work.  "Ms. Granger," he said now, neutrally, aware that there was no point in antagonizing the woman who held his very soul in her hands.

"Mr. Malfoy," Hermione returned, looking him over.  Hard to believe that anyone so monstrous could have so little presence, she thought.  As a child, Draco had dominated every setting in which he was found, shining like the star on top of a Christmas tree, but now he was the sort of man one could pass on the street without a second glance.  Handsome, but not startlingly so, rather like an over-bred thoroughbred horse that had become resigned to pulling a cart.  It was enough to make her wonder which was the truth—had his charisma been no more than a spell, or had something been done to him to keep him from standing out?  "Well," she continued, looking over the room, "it seems that everyone is here.  I think we can begin."

Switching into lecture mode, she looked her audience over.  Draco, in the center, cuffed to the chair, his silver eyes cool.  Harry, behind him, green eyes guarded, and Sirius, looking troubled, to his left.  And, seated at the table, the men and woman who would judge him.  Men and women of honor, who could be trusted to act impartially (as much anyone could who had fought for their side could, on such an issue.)  Albus Dumbledore, chair of the War Crimes Reconciliation Council; Roan Atkins, an international specialist in wizard's rights; James Sturbridge, Muggle Representative; and Remus Lupin, Chief Auror.  So few, to wield such power, to change a man's life, or end it.  For a moment, looking over them, Hermione was troubled.  But she was responsible for the safety of England, of all the wizarding world, and she did what must be done.  "We'll be using the Commoneo Charm, Mr. Malfoy.  I trust Mr. Potter has familiarized you with your rights?"__


	3. RememberAll Part I: Before the Fall

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Remember-All—_Before the Fall_

At Draco's nod, she continued, "Very well.  Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, the mirror, please?"  Harry and Sirius lifted the huge framed mirror to lie flat on the table before the judges, and then took their seats.  Hermione turned to Dumbledore.  "Where would you like me to start, sir?" Dumbledore chewed thoughtfully on the ends of his beard.  "Start at the beginning, child," he said at last.                                                                                                                            

Hermione spoke the words to invoke the charm softly.  She had never grown used to this spell, though she herself had created it.  She had never before used it on someone she had known, never used it someone who had once been on their side, never grown used to seeing memories enacted, so.  She was a little afraid of what might be waiting in Draco's mind.  

Images had begun to form in the mirror:  Draco, kneeling at his father's feet, in what must be Malfoy House.  He looked paler and smaller than she remembered him being, but of course they were seeing everything as he remembered it.  The look on his face was intense, focused, as if his life hung on Lucius' words, but he did not seem afraid at all.  She wondered how old he was—fifteen, perhaps sixteen at most.  Not so pretty as he had truly been, nor so fragile.  Amazing how differently they all saw themselves.

His father's hand smoothed Draco's white blond hair, and after a while Lucius said, "I want you to fight against us."

Draco's body stiffened, and she thought for a moment he was going to cry out, but he stilled, and in the past, memory-Draco said, "I will do anything you ask of me, father, but do not ask me to do that."

Lucius' voice was calm, his words tinged with sorrow.  "We cannot win this war, Dray; must not, if anything of our way of life is to survive.  I dare not betray the Dark Lord now, but I will not have you bound as I am bound.  I want you to go to Dumbledore, and tell him you will fight for them.  Take young Crabbe and Goyle with you if you must; take them all with you if you can.  Our house has ever served its own ends and must do so again."

Draco—Draco present, watched, soundless and blank, as Draco past said, reluctantly, "Very well, father.  I will do as you ask."  And then, moving with the stiffness of a man who has received a mortal wound, stood, and transformed, and flew wearily back to Hogwarts under a starless sky.  His audience gasped, all but Harry.  They had not known Draco was an Animagus, or that Hogwarts' security could be breached in such a fashion, though Dumbledore at least must have suspected.  

The falcon flew through the open window of the Owlery and turned back into Draco, stifling a yawn as he fastidiously straightened his robes and hair, ignoring the man waiting in the shadows.  When he had finished the figure spoke.  "Well, boy?"  

Draco turned to face him.  "Professor Snape.  You needn't have waited, you know; I'm perfectly capable of making my way back to the dormitory alone."

The other man shrugged.  "I had little enough else to do.  Was all well at Malfoy House?"

Draco sighed, "Well enough, and not well at all.  My father—grows tired, I think."

"As do we all, Mr. Malfoy," Snape answered heavily,  "As do we all."

"You were called, then, sir?  I thought, tonight…"

Snape looked up for the first time, and his eyes were heavy with unshed tears.  "It doesn't matter," he said finally, as if every word hurt him.

"No," Draco breathed.  "Let me help, Severus.  No one should have to bear this burden alone."

It was clear that these were words that had been spoken before; there was a weight to the scene that was almost that of ritual.  Snape made what must have been his usual response:  "I cannot, Draco.  I dare not, for my soul's sake.  Now leave be and go."

But Draco's head was up and his eyes were dark, as though all the shadows that sheathed the edges of the room had turned silver to tarnish.  "You would not tell my father no."

Snape somehow managed to look as though he'd been bitten and was bleeding to death slowly, though he did not move or react in any way.  "You are not your father, _child._  Now go."

For an instant it seemed that Draco meant to argue further, but he had obeyed one order or another all his life and in the end he went.  He was not his father; Lucius would not have gone without a fight.  Lucius fought to the end because Malfoys were never made to submit.  Only Draco did what he was told—his secret shame, that cowardice, though he told himself it was common sense.

And in the corridor he met Harry with Hermione, and Ron, children still at seventeen, sneaking out to play, who'd no idea how much blood had been spilled to grant them that freedom.  Glad of the opportunity for a good clean fight, and well aware he must give Snape time to recover, he hissed something thoughtless and cruel, aware that he only needed to throw in the word Mudblood to drive them all into a rage.  Odd, how satisfying it was, to be punched in the mouth, and to hit back.  

Hermione turned away, disgusted, as the three of them flattened Draco Malfoy.  She remembered that night—fall of their seventh year, then.  They had not been quite such heedless children as they looked; all of them had already borne their share of scars.  It must have been just after Bill Weasley's death, when she and Harry had thought no risk was too great to make Ron smile again.  In another moment, Snape would be along to rescue Draco and punish them for their lack of sportsmanship.  They had lost Gryffindor quite a few points that semester, between them.

"Right," Dumbledore said.  "Let's move on a bit, then."

The Slytherin common room, somewhat later in the year, and earlier in the evening.  Snape had been called more nights than not, that winter, and he was seldom present.  Draco was the leader of Slytherin House now in everything but name.  He knew that they would follow him, Pansy and Vin and Greg and Blaise and Toby and Iris and the others.  He had sounded them out one or two at a time, making certain that they were no more willing to join the Dark Lord than he himself was.  None of them truly wanted to serve Voldemort, and yet they could conceive of nothing else.  He meant to give them something else to do.  He meant to give them another master to serve, one far less cruel if more indifferent.

"I am going to pledge my loyalty to Dumbledore," he said to them, taking care to make each word count.  "This war of Voldemort's is an ill-conceived and foolish thing, and I will not throw my life away for another man's vanity.  I only wish I need not fight against you, my friends, but know that if you survive this war, I will beg clemency for you, Death Eaters or no."

And Greg cried out, just as they had rehearsed:  "What makes you so sure we will stand against you, Malfoy?"  The others made noises of assent, as he had hoped, and then they were all on their feet, and cheering for him.  

"We will swear with you, Drake," Pansy finished, when the noise had died down.  "But it had best be done tonight, or we risk more than I care to pay."

Draco bowed to her, as a gentleman did to a lady.  She had played her part as well as any of them, though she had not known it was a part.  He felt a momentary surge of affection for her, for all of them:  they were everything Dumbledore most despised and Voldemort most admired, pureblooded and proud and powerful, and willing to die for a cause they did not even wholly support.  They were not kind or gentle or easy, but they had a terrible wild beauty all their own, that spoke of bloodlines old before Guillaime the Conqueror had ridden over the water to England on a fork-hooved horse breathing fire.

It was that world, the feudal, futile world of ancient lineage and primeval magic, of protectorates and great names and thousand year vows and manuscripts engraved in liquid gold and human blood, crosses and Crusades and wars won and countries lost by the sword, that they risked.  Voldemort would never let them be.  He risked too much, when every one of the old houses was entangled in an impenetrable web of favors and allegiances that no half bred from an undistinguished line could unravel.  Any one of the fourteen in that room could raise a banner that all the others might well follow, and the resulting battle would destroy all England.  Voldemort could not afford to let them go on as they had been, and Dumbledore would not want to.

The truth was that Tom Riddle was descended on his mother's side from the younger son of a minor house, and he had always envied the scions of the great purebred houses.  But Albus Dumbledore was a Mudblood, brought up in the Muggle world.  He did not envy his betters—he despised them.  He was a powerful wizard, a much needed ally, but in his way he was every bit as much a racist as Voldemort.  They, the pureblood families who once had ruled the world, were not strong enough to defeat the Dark Lord and survive, but that did not mean they were willing to follow the Headmaster of Hogwarts either.

Draco knew what it was he asked of his fellow Slytherins, the sacrifice his father had been unable to make.  They were willing to do for love what they had not been willing to do for safety, or for morality or the good of the wizarding world.  And he led them as he had been commanded to do, because in the end he feared and loved and respected and hated Lucius Malfoy more than any man on earth.  And he liked it as little of any of them.

 They spilled into the corridor, in a mob of light and laughter and Draco thought, with the edge of terror that marked a true Divining, some of them will die for me.  I will destroy or betray them one by one.  And he almost said, then, "Stop," almost let it end there in the hallway outside Dumbledore's office.  He was almost but not quite brave enough to stand up for himself, there where it would have mattered most of all.  But they were everything and nothing to him, his friends; they were nothing to the duty he owed his name, his father.  By such increments the world is changed.

He did not know the password for Dumbledore's office, of course, and for a moment he thought that, given check, the little rebellion he led might collapse under its own lost momentum.  Dumbledore opened the door to them himself, said as he closed it, "Mr. Malfoy, to what do I owe this unexpected honor?"

Draco looked him square in the face, silver eyes blazing.  "We have come to offer ourselves, to you, Headmaster."

Dumbledore made a mildly disgusted face, as though he'd been offered candy from the floor, and Draco thought, this is why my father hates him, then.  How dare he be so unaware of what it is we risk when we betray Voldemort?  How dare he be so ungrateful even to our faces, when we are willing to sacrifice our very lives?  How dare he look at us as if we are nothing but dirt, and then expect us to fight beside him?

"Thank you, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said at last.  "I am—pleased—to welcome you all to our side."  

Draco bit his lip, resisting the temptation to point out that Dumbledore didn't look very pleased.  Even the phoenix perched on the mantel was making sour faces.

After a moment the Headmaster continued. "There are certain oaths you will be required to swear, of course, before the Council.  And we will have to decide what role it will be best for you to play.  With that in mind, Mr. Malfoy, I would ask you to bring your compatriots to the Council meeting tomorrow evening."

Draco nodded because he could not trust his voice.  Gathering the shreds of his dignity he led the others out.  Somehow Dumbledore always managed to reduce him to a spoiled five year old, always managed to put him in the wrong.  He led them back to the dungeon, all his elation and pride turned sour.  In the common room Snape waited, and Draco could see at a glance there was trouble.

They knew what to do; they had done it for him all the last three years as he struggled to prove himself once more.  Voldemort was cruelest to those he feared, and he feared Severus Snape, half-bred, powerful son of a very old line, more than most.  Of late it had grown steadily worse; soon it would be impossible for them to patch his wounds on their own.  Yet they dared not risk revealing Snape as Death Eater, not when mere suspicion was enough to kill.  Dumbledore and his Council would tear Snape apart, and never stop to think of the good he had done.  

Carefully Draco and Pansy levitated him, wincing at the moans he could not quite suppress.  They bore him into his own quarters, the painfully bare rooms that had been his home for more than fifteen years.  Draco undressed him while Pansy rolled bandages and Greg brought in a bucket of warm water.  As gently as they could they rinsed away the blood, healed what they could and bandaged the rest.  Snape moved restlessly and Draco wondered grimly what drugs he had been given and what potions _they_ dared give him, without risking shock or worse.  He was a Slytherin, and he understood ambition, but Snape had taken to an extreme, rather.

By morning Snape was vomiting blood, which might have been reaction to any of a dozen drugs, an aftereffect of rape, or the result of internal injuries.  Desperate, they argued over ideas, but in the end, they did the only thing they could think of.  Draco forged Snape's signature on a note and took it down to the library.  There was a book he knew of, one in Lucius' personal collection and also in the Restricted Section of the school library.  He had sneaked books before, of course, but never for so grave a cause.  He did his best to look ordinary and harmless as he searched the shelves and found it.  

_Blüd Majik_, bound in faded black and peeling gold, and translated into awkward, twelfth century Latin from the original Aramaic.  Spells so powerful and dangerous they had been illegal for a millennium.  There were only two copies known to have survived the Spanish Inquisition, smuggled into England by noblemen who feared the loss of knowledge more than the wrath of God.  One copy had been lost and had somehow found its way into Hogwarts disguised as something far less deadly; Lucius had pilfered the second from the ruins of Riddle House.

The Mudblood, no doubt there on some legitimate, Potter-related errand, shot him a curious glance, then looked away.  Draco ignored her, too panicked even to snarl at her.  As soon he was clear, he bolted for the dungeons, shoving the students in the hall out of his way.  Pansy and Blaise waited in Snape's work room, looking as frightened as he felt.  The others had gone to class; anything to keep up appearances—they dared not attract attention just now.  

Draco hardly dared breathe as he opened the ancient book, flipping past spells for stealing souls and stilling hearts.  "Here," he pointed.  "It's this one, the warding spell.  We exchange blood, it says, and that forms a tie between us that will allow me to see what's wrong with him and fix it."

"It's unbreakable, Dray.  Are you sure you want to try it?  If the binding works, and we can't heal him, you might die with him."

Draco thought, no one expects me to do this.  No one could reasonably be expected to do it.  Let one of the others risk it.  But he was remembering what it felt like to be eleven, and afraid and alone, and that Professor Snape had been the only teacher who did not fear or hate him, based simply on his parentage.  He was remembering Snape patiently tutoring the first year who could work advanced spells and make any potion, but who could barely read; Snape's cool hands on his forehead when he was sick; Snape listening silently to him cry, and knowing enough not to offer comfort he could not have accepted; Snape healing the bruises he had hoped no one would ever see.  He remembered Snape, exhausted and ill, waiting in the Owlery to make sure Draco came back safely.  He would have liked to walk away but he knew he could not.

"I'll do it," he said softly.  "Blaise, you'll help me make up the potion?  Pansy can watch Snape."

Silently they prepared the necessary ingredients, borrowing heavily from Snape's stores.  Resin, wine, galangal root, juniper berries, root of aromatic rush, asphaltum, mastic, myrrh, grapes, honey, and crushed garlic (for courage.)[1]  The potion turned a pale pure gold, as they heated it, and Draco began to feel cautiously optimistic.  It was mid afternoon by the time they finished and carried the potion into Snape's bedroom.  He looked worse than ever, gray with pain, and Pansy said nervously, "I hope we haven't left it too long.  He's dying, Drake."

Draco held out his left wrist and Blaise smeared it carefully with the potion while Pansy did the same for the unconscious Snape.  He felt himself going into a trance even before Blaise pressed the silver knife into his hand.  And then he drew it carefully down the length of his arm, pressing as hard as he could.  He was surprised how much pressure it took to break the skin.  He was surprised how little it hurt, and how much it bled and how quickly.  Catching his breath, he bowed his head and recited the necessary words, and then cut Snape's arm and pressed the wounds together.  

Almost immediately, he began to feel lightheaded, as if he were running a fever.  Snape's pulse sounded in his ears, much too quick and in awkward counterpoint to his own heartbeat.  "It's working," he managed to say thickly.  He could see, now, what was wrong with Snape, as if the man's chest was made of transparent glass.  Laying a hand on Snape's forehead, he worked spells he had never known:  spells to cool the fever, slow the racing heart, force blood to injured areas and then away.  He healed torn tissue, joined broken bone, and repaired the damage to Snape's stomach and kidneys.

He could feel Snape return to consciousness, could feel the surge of rage as Snape realized what he done.  "You little fool," the professor hissed at him, and Draco stepped back.  As soon as the physical link between them was broken, the connection thinned to almost nothing.  Draco realized, relieved, that distance would make it nonexistent.  And then Snape was on his feet, face set, and anger rolling off him in waves almost visible to the naked eye.  "Merlin, Draco, do you know what you've done?  What was that spell?"

Draco swallowed, but before he could force the words out, Snape continued in a rush.  "I dare not wait to deal with you children now.  But know this:  you have done well, and yet no one life is worth what it is you risked."  As he spoke he flung on his robes and dashed out, leaving Draco, Pansy, and Blaise to stare after him white-faced.  The cut on Draco's arm began to throb, and he absently pressed Snape's sheet to it, to slow the bleeding.  After a long moment of awed silence, there was a barely audible click of the door opening and Greg slunk in.  

            "It worked, then?" he asked.  "Drake, you'd best let us bandage that arm, before we go."

            "Go, where?" Blaise sounded as dazed as Draco felt, but she was methodically tearing another strip from the sheet.

            "I thought you knew," Greg said.  "We've got to be at the Council meeting in ten minutes.  You all have cut it rather fine."  Pansy and Blaise laughed tremulously, but Draco felt sick thinking of what might have been.  How had he let time get so out of hand?  He glanced down at his arm again, this time in wonder. It had been amazing, to hold such power, and now he was too tired even to heal a simple gash. 

            Luckily the blood came out of their robes with just one Charm.  There would not have been time to change, and still be ready for the meeting.  And where had Snape gone in such a rush?  The others were waiting in the corridor, faces very pale, and quieter than he had ever seen them.  They, too, felt the gravity of what they did, as they made their way up to Dumbledore's passageway once more.  No need for passwords tonight; a man waited in the shadow of the great door—Draco recognized a Weasel, no doubt the brilliant Charlie, recalled from the dragonfields.  His face was closed, expressionless, but Draco had no doubt he was furious that they had come.

            "Malfoy, then?" he said in greeting.  "You have the look of your father about you.  You lot, I'll need to see your arms before you can go in."  One by one, the Slytherins rolled back their sleeves, revealing unmarked forearms, until at last it was Draco's turn.  Head high, he waited, unprotesting as Charlie carefully unfastened the bandages 'round the wound he shared with Snape.  The eyes he raised to meet Draco's were stunned and pitying.  "So that's the way it is, then?" he asked so softly that none of the others heard.  "You poor little git.  But you want to be careful, doing that.  That one's deep, almost to the bone."  Draco stared fixedly at the wall.  He had cut himself before, it was true, but this one was legitimate enough, and he hated pity.  After a moment, Charlie sighed, "Go on through, then.  You are all clear."

            They emerged, blinking, into a large cavernous room that should not have fit where it was.  It was very crowded—perhaps thirty people sat around an enormous wooden table, and ten or so others stood at the room's edges.  Dumbledore, of course, was at the head, backed by an enormous map of England covered with tiny waving flags of black and crimson.  It was no surprise to see that he used Gryffindor colors to mark the strongholds of his alliance.  

As those at the table became aware of their entry, there was a great rumble of voices and all the heads in the room turned.  Draco used the moment to memorize faces, as many as possible.  Weasel Senior, no surprise there, when his oldest son had bitten it fighting Voldemort.  The former Minister for Sport, Ludo Bagman, wearing an ugly striped shirt.  Cornelius Fudge, looking worried.  Pansy Parkinson's oldest sister, the one she had always claimed was dead—he heard Pansy catch her breath.  Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and Snape, the last of whom looked rather breathless still.  One of the Weasley twins, in Muggle clothing.  The man who worked at the wand store in Diagon Alley, three barmaids from Hogwarts, one of them Rosemerta herself.  Oliver whatever, the old Gryffindor Keeper, and several Ravenclaws he almost recognized.  The great Harry Potter, flanked by his two staunchest allies, the Brain and the Brawn.  No shocks, although he had not known that Snape sat so high in Dumbledore's Council.  

"As you have called us, so we have come, Professor," he heard himself say from a thousand miles away.  He could feel his arm bleeding again, and surreptitiously pressed it against his side. 

"Very well," Dumbledore answered him.  "But before you can be welcome in this company, you must kneel and swear to obey the will of this Council in all things.  These are difficult times, and all those who serve, those present and absent, must have assurance of your good faith.  Arthur, the oath, please."  Around him the others knelt, until he alone stood with all eyes on him, fighting the urge to blush.  Arthur Weasley limped toward him, sword in hand, but Draco stood his ground.  

Abruptly Potter was on his feet as well.  "Well, Malfoy?" he demanded, his voice low and dangerous.

Draco stared him down.  "Malfoys do not kneel, Potter."

Potter's face tightened.  "I could make you kneel, Malfoy.  I could break you so fast--" and the Mudblood's hand was on his arm, her voice cautioning him.  

"I will not kneel before anyone willingly," Draco let his voice ring out so that they all heard him.  "Break me, but I will not."   He could feel himself begin to sweat; he was not sure what he would do if they did try to force the issue, but he dared not kneel.  Malfoys knelt only to God, and even then it was after a fight.

The others stood, and suddenly their warm solid strength was at his back.  "Break him," Vince echoed, "but you must break us all first.  Take him on his word alone.  The word of a Malfoy is his bond." 

Blaise moved beside him, face set and eyes hard.  "I will not kneel to you either.  My loyalty is to Draco and I swear to love him, serve him and obey him, in all that he shall ask of me.  I will serve your cause, only because he does."

And then they all were saying it, all throwing away their lives, throwing him their support.  And still Dumbledore stared down at him, and Harry, daring him to defy them, not knowing he would do it in a heartbeat if it were not for his father.  And at last he bent his head, if not his knee, and said, solemn and proud, "I pledge myself, body, heart, and soul, to you, abjuring all other allegiances except those of blood, which cannot be broken in life.  And I bring to you these others, valiant and true, and I swear that we will obey the will of this assembled Council in all things."

Dumbledore answered him, coldly, "I accept your pledge of support, Draco Malfoy, and accord to you and those under you, the protection of the Council so long as you remain loyal."  

"Then we are agreed, Headmaster.  I await your orders." Draco finished it, throwing a cool smile over his shoulder as he left.   

Harry present looked over at Draco present, but the other man was staring intently into the mirror, as if it held all his hopes for salvation.  Which it probably did, if Draco had any hope left.  And Dumbledore present said, "Yes, child, a bad beginning to a most unpleasant story.  But we'd best continue."

_AN:  Thank you everyone who reviewed.  I'm sorry I took so long to get this chapter out, but it wound up so long I had to split it.  Remember-All:  A Long Way Down will deal with Draco's betrayal.  And the slash will start soon, I promise. Love, Ishafel_

  


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[1] Recipe for the Egyptian potion kyfi, uses unknown, taken from _The Confessions of Aleister Crowley_ chapter 62.


	4. RememberAll Part II: A Long Way Down

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Remember-All II:  A Long Way Down 

            He spent the night avoiding Snape, as did the others:  lurking in their bedrooms despite the lure of the warm common room with its glowing fire.  He spent the night wishing things had gone differently—it would have been so much simpler if he had only been allowed to follow the course nature and his father had once proscribed for him—that of a Death Eater, rising slowly through the ranks of Voldemort's Inner Circle, until he came to hold a position just under Lucius and the Dark Lord himself.  There was a time when that had been everything he had ever hoped for, and now he was doomed to forgo it, and fight by the side of those he most despised.

            They none of them slept that night—they were all too awed by what they had done, this decision that would shape the rest of their lives.  For some of them it would mean their deaths, or the deaths of their families; for all of them it would mean giving up (or hiding their continued allegiance to) that set of beliefs they had lived by.  He was lucky and he knew it; he at least had his father's approbation for what it was he had done.

            At breakfast, Potter and his henchmen glared at the Slytherin table.  Clearly Potter did not balk at sharing Council secrets with the Mudblood or the Weasel.  Draco sunk lower in his chair, and winced as he saw the Great Horned Owl that was his father's favorite messenger.  It flew away when he took the letter; clearly no reply was anticipated, or wanted.  

Using one of the table knives, Draco carefully removed the Malfoy seal intact and unfolded the single sheet of parchment.  It was in his father's powerful, slanting hand, though unsigned:  the words, "_You are dead to me.  I have no sons._"  Draco glanced at the heavy signet ring on his left hand just in time to see the Malfoy crest disappear, leaving the flat, bare surface of onyx.  At his right hip, the familiar weight of the sword Ferux, borne by Malfoy heirs for five centuries and charmed into invisibility here at Hogwarts, was suddenly gone.

               With a sigh, Draco cracked the seal of the letter.  Instantly words began to appear, forming neatly on the blank outer side of the parchment.  Lucius had written, "_You have done well, my son.  I love you.  Fare you well, in this coming war, and may we meet again when it is done.  LM._"  Immediately the weight of the sword returned at his hip, though the crest on his ring did not reappear.  Not disinherited then, not in truth, though Lucius would not acknowledge him openly.  Biting his lip, he fought back tears, knowing that this might very well be his final communication with his father; it was unlikely, if events unfolded as predicted, that Lucius would survive.  

He knew, though he would have liked to keep the letter, that it must be destroyed.  It was an effort to put on the mask he must wear, but in the end Draco thought he managed rather well.  He flung back his chair, stalking to the great fireplace in his best suddenly destitute yet haughty manner.  Tearing the letter to shreds and feeding it into the fire, he was suddenly aware of all the eyes that watched:  the eyes that had always watched.  He could not even have this moment alone.  He kept his back to the room as he choked back a very real sob, and so he was taken utterly by surprise when an icy hand gripped the collar of his shirt.  

"My office, Mr. Malfoy," Snape hissed.  "Now."

Draco followed him; chin up, waving off a concerned Greg and Vince.  Pansy looked positively ill, but Blaise winked at him and waved.  Snape turned his glare on her and she hastily pretended to be reaching for the butter.  

In Snape's office, Draco slumped into the chair facing his head of house, aware that he was in for it.  "Well, Mr. Malfoy?"  Snape inquired coldly.  "Do you care to explain any of the decisions you made over the last forty-eight hours?"

Draco was tempted to lip off to him, though it never helped matters.  How easy it would be to say, no, I don't believe I do care to, or something equally snarky.  But Snape was known for his temper, even in Slytherin House where sarcasm was expected, and besides he was already in a rage.  Better not to chance it.  And so he did what he always did, said what he thought Snape wanted to hear:  nonsense about causes and redemption that he was not even sure the Potions Master believed.  He did not say, my father told me to betray him, or I saved you because you were kind to me.  He was not sure how Snape would have taken that.  He never told the truth, even to himself.  It was hard; to have Snape as an enemy, to know that he should betray the man to Dumbledore, and that to do so would mean Snape's death.  It was hard, knowing that they two were bound forever by blood.

"It was a blood spell," he answered at last.  "Old magic, but not illegal.  And—we thought it would be worth the cost."  He slipped away, leaving Snape sitting silent as the grave.  

In March Draco turned eighteen, and his mother came to see him, for the first time since he had thrown his loyalties to Dumbledore.  Narcissa Malfoy was the sort of woman men often underestimated; they saw her lush beauty, her golden hair and golden skin, and they did not notice her sharp, analytical mind, or her coldness.  Draco loved his mother, of course, but he was not close to her.  Narcissa's Potions research was her baby; her work in the little-explored field of human Transfiguration was her life.  She had made sure Draco was fed and clothed, and taught him spells and charms when it occurred to her, but otherwise she had ignored him (and his father) whenever possible. 

A younger Draco had often wondered how Lucius had managed to court her, much less get her with child.  Unwittingly, she had given him the answer when he was fifteen, and she'd taught him the Animagus spell and absently revealed that she'd wanted a baby so that she could study the effects the charm had on a fetus.  But by then, Draco was old enough to understand that some people were simply not made for parenthood.  He had had Lucius, who was everything a father could have been, and so he could afford to be proud of his brilliant, beautiful mother, who had written his sixth-year Transfiguration textbook and who knew things he could not even imagine.

That was why he was able to react calmly when Narcissa handed him his gift (a black cashmere sweater) and the news that she was leaving his father.  "Really," he replied, raising one eyebrow in the gesture he had learned from Lucius, the one he knew she hated.

But Narcissa was not looking at him.  Instead she was rubbing the bare spot on her finger where the Malfoy diamond had once resided, when she was in human form.  "His work—for his Master—was interfering," she said in clipped tones.  "And, I've met someone else."  

When she went, Draco was left staring into the flames, trying to imagine her cheating on his father.  She had not even told him whom she was having the sordid little affair with.  He could not bring himself to care, except for what the news must have done to Lucius.  The urge to owl his father was almost overwhelming; only the knowledge that it might mean both their necks kept him from it.

In April, Aurors killed Vincent Crabbe's mother and younger sisters in a botched Ministry raid, one spearheaded by Arthur Weasley.  Draco stood with Vin at the funeral, and listened to his friend cry that night in the dorm, and wondered whether there was anything to choose between the sides.  A week later Vin's father was dead, too, by his own hand.  Snape, who had been called the night he died, would say only that there were some things no one could heal.

In June Draco graduated second in his class, just behind the Mudblood, and he and Vin and the great Harry Potter stood on the fringe of the celebration and watched.  And Draco wondered where his father was, and what he was doing, and hoped that he was safe.  In June the war began in earnest, and people he had known all his life died.  People whose names he had never heard died.  The Death Eaters attacked the Ministry and the Tower and all the strongholds of the wizarding establishment, and Fudge died, and the Minister for Magical Education died, and Blaise Zabini's father, and Neville Longbottom's grandmother, and two Hufflepuff girls; and Dumbledore's Magical Resistance Force seized the property and the funds of the Flints and the Lestranges and the Notts and all those who had sided with Voldemort.  

Dumbledore himself commanded his tiny army as if he were Napoleon reborn.  He had assigned his people into units, and named a leader for each unit.  Harry Potter headed the Reconnaissance Squad, Hermione Granger served on the Research Squad, and Draco and his Slytherins were the entire Personnel Retrieval Squad.  Their mission was to rescue operatives lost in the field or captured by the Death Eaters.  While Draco was moderately pleased with his shiny new lieutenant's badge, it was a shit job and he knew it.  They were to risk their necks to rescue Potter's people (no doubt the Weasel would delight in having them come after him) whenever Potter was stupid enough to get them captured.  

Draco complained:  it was a waste of talent, he told Dumbledore and everyone else who would listen.  He was as bright as Granger and as fast as Harry Potter; Pansy and Blaise could plot with the best of them; Toby was a phenomenal marksman and Millicent and Vin could outhex any Gryffindor.  They would do well anywhere, but they should be divided because they all had different strengths.  Dumbledore was not giving them a chance to prove themselves—he was hoping they would be killed.  It hurt, not having Snape to confide in any longer, not having him on their side.  Their relationship had been destroyed the night Draco had pledged himself to Dumbledore, and it seemed nothing could repair it.

By July he wore Ferux openly at his side, though he had charmed her to look like an ordinary blade.  Voldemort's army burned the Weasel's family home, and Iris's with her whole family in it, and a score of others belonging to Council members, and refugees flooded Hogwarts.  Snape was gone for good, having finally and irrevocably chosen sides.  Professor Sprout was gone, too, albeit in a different way.  Vector had fled for the States.  They did not any of them pretend anymore that the war would end with the summer, that things could ever be the way they had once been.

August was hot, almost too hot to fight—almost.  Draco spent most of his time sprawled on the stone floor of the dungeons, or making slow, sticky love to Blaise.  He could not seem to bring himself to care, not about the fate of the wizarding world, or his own future, not about how the war would end.  In August, he killed for the first time, and burned himself with a Muggle cigarette for the first time.  

August rolled into November and the rains started, and Draco quarreled with Blaise over some small thing, and that was when Potter caught him sitting in the window seat in a long empty hallway of disused classrooms, and confronted him.  It was the first time they had been alone together, really alone, that Draco could remember.  The first time since they were eleven, anyway.  Potter looked absolutely the same:  his expression still a mixture of confusion and good will, his body hard and wiry, his eyes clouded behind the glasses and slightly wary the way a dog that has been kicked once too often is wary.

Draco stubbed his cigarette butt out on the ledge and stood.  He and Potter were better matched than ever, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped, muscled from their months of training; Draco was an inch the taller and Potter perhaps a stone heavier, and it took all of Draco's skill to give the illusion that he was looking down on Potter from some great height.  "Yes?" he asked now, managing to make the words sound lofty and cool, a nobleman dismissing a superior.

He could see Potter's eyes narrow, as the other man tried to understand why he suddenly felt inferior to Draco Malfoy, minor lackey in the great Resistance army, and he could feel Potter's sudden fury at himself.  It was difficult to restrain a smile at the indignant Boy Who Lived, but Draco managed it; no sense in giving away his secrets.  No sense in giving anything away to Potter.

"Why do you do it?" Potter demanded.  "You must see we don't want you, don't need you.  You must see that Dumbledore is sending you all to your deaths."

Draco flinched.  It was true; his team had higher losses than any other.  He had wondered, when Toby died, and Millicent, if there was something wrong.  But he was a Slytherin, and he saw treachery everywhere he looked.  For Potter, Gryffindor's golden boy, to comprehend it, it must be very, very clear.  Or Potter had a part in it, as well as Dumbledore.  Was there some Gryffindor plot afoot?  Was he so blind he could not see what was beneath his very nose?

 There was really only one response he could make; he dared not use magic and risk Dumbledore's notice and though he would have loved to throttle Potter with his bare hands he was not sure enough of his superiority to risk it.  Instead he drew Ferux, the enchanted blade springing into his hand at a thought almost, while Potter fumbled for his heavier weapon.  Draco had seen him train with it, had seen him fight even, one night when they had been too late to save the oafish Hagrid from disaster.  He had cut Marcus Flint to pieces, while Draco destroyed Marcus's wife Fleur and tried not to think of the baby they left orphaned.  

Potter was good with a sword, particularly in close quarters, but he was not Draco's equal.  Draco did not pick fights he was not sure he could win.  Raising Ferux in salute, he engaged.  He drove Potter back, and back again, and the other man gasped for breath and shouted angrily, "Stop, Malfoy!  I did not come here for this!"

Draco feinted, and the blades rang in protest.  "No?  Do not speak to me of betrayal, Potter, and expect me to thank you and smile.  I will have the truth.  Why is it you think Dumbledore wants me dead?"  His sword caught Potter's, held it, just as his eyes held Potter's.

But Potter twisted, broke free, and Draco was forced to step back.  "I don't think it, Malfoy.  I know it."  He dropped his blade with a clatter, and Draco, who had not expected so easy a victory, stumbled, overbalanced, and nearly stabbed him by accident.

"He wants you all dead," Potter said.  "I'm not sure why, maybe he bears your father some grudge he's transferred to you, maybe he doesn't trust the others to stay loyal, maybe it's just that you defied him.  But he does not want you on his side.  Merlin, Malfoy, how can you not see it?  He sends you where the action is, it's no accident."  
            Grudgingly Draco dropped the point of his sword.  "Why?" he asked.

"I don't know, I told you— ".

"Not that.  _Why_, Potter?  Why are you telling me this?  Don't expect me to believe you want me for an ally."

Potter's eyes fell, and when he looked up again they bored into Draco like green lasers.  "Do you think so little of me that you believe I would see you betrayed for an old man's whim?"

"Is that all it is," Draco demanded, as with a flick of his wrist he raised his sword to Potter's throat.  "An old man's whim?"  He pushed Potter back until the other man was flat against the wall.  "Is that all it is?"

Potter turned his head and spat.  "I swear to you Malfoy, on my parents' graves—and there is nothing I hold dearer—that this is not some Resistance plot to trap you, or your father.  I want to see you dead, but not so badly I will betray everything I stand for."  And in as neat a move as Draco had seen, his sword came out of nowhere, to lie cool and deadly along Draco's jugular.  This time it was Draco who gave ground, who ended back to something unyielding.  

            He could have got free, of course; Potter's defense was weaker on his left, and he knew a thousand different countermoves.  But he knew that Potter needed to be in control and so he pretended to be beaten.  He let fall his sword and raised his empty hands, and the cuffs of the shirt he wore fell back to reveal his unmarked arms, and unexpectedly Potter kissed him hard and inexpertly on the mouth and Draco froze.  He had kissed boys before; had lain with anyone that caught his eye.  He had kissed men, too; his father had taught him long ago that his body was just another tool to be used to get what he wanted.  Such relationships were forbidden in the wizarding world, but they were not unheard of.  

            But Draco had never imagined Harry Potter would kiss him, there in the late afternoon sunlight outside the room where they had once studied charms and snarled at one another.  He had never imagined Potter leaning into him, bracing himself against the cool rough plaster with one arm, while the other touched the side of Draco's face softly and tentatively.  He had dreamed of killing Potter, often enough.  And then the other man stepped back, eyes wide and stricken, chest heaving.  Draco thought that he looked like a disillusioned child.  "Hey," he said as gently as he could.  "It's okay, Potter.  I mean, don't make a habit of it or anything, but this one's free."

Potter shook his head.  "Merlin, what have I done?  What have you done to me?"

 Draco stared at him, amazed at his naiveté.  Had he ever been that much of an innocent?  "Potter, look.  It was a kiss, is all.  Not the end of the world.  Not very different with me than it would be with anyone else.  It happened, is all.  If we never talk about it again, it will be like nothing happened."  And in his head, Lucius said dryly, 'Make note of your enemy's weaknesses.  Surprising, how many people are floored by sex.  What you have to remember is that it only matters if you want it to matter.  No one balks at using brains, or magical talents, or physical prowess, to advance a cause.  Your looks are a gift like any other, Dray; take advantage of them while they last.'  Good to know that Potter wanted him—there was little doubt he could use it to his advantage some day.  More important, the half-relayed information about Dumbledore.  He would willingly lay with Potter if there were lives at stake, but he did not think the other man would be ready to barter.  Not just then.

Before he could say anything else, Potter stammered out an apology and fled.  Draco stared after him bemused, noting his lurching progress, the fading arousal his jeans had failed to mask entirely.  He muttered, "_Accio_," and then sheathed Ferux.

Later he made up with Blaise, mostly so he could take her to bed.  Lying with her on the embroidered linen sheets (BZ with a blank spot for her husband's initial, but she had been betrothed at birth to Silas Troxon and he served the Dark Lord now) that had once been part of her trousseau, he stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling of the bedroom that that had once been Snape's, and thought of Harry Potter.  No doubt Potter was jerking off in his claustrophobic curtained bed, listening to the whistle of the wind through Gryffindor Tower.  Ironic, to be given such a weapon, to be given the means to destroy his greatest rival and not to be able to take advantage.     

            The chandelier made shadows like dark stars on the flawless white of Blaise's back as she slept, and he kissed the hollow of her back and traced them one by one.  Blaise had laughed when he told her about Potter.  But after, when they were alone in the silence of the big bed, she said breathily, "I'll be him, Dray, Harry Potter.  Do it to me from behind, and pretend I'm him."  Blaise liked to play games.  All the same, he wondered what it would be like to lie with Potter, the real Harry Potter.  Would he squeal, the way Blaise had, and bite Draco's neck?  Probably not.  He would probably not beg, either—no doubt he had too much pride.  Draco had never lain with a virgin before—.

            As if at the thought, the alarms in the Great Hall went off.  Trouble.  Draco sat up, glancing out the window.  Full dark, and a moon so bright it looked like daylight reflecting off the falling snow.  It was a night for trouble.  He and Blaise dressed, unhurried but quick with the ease of long practice.  They had done this so many times before it was almost routine, if anything could be a routine that killed.

            In the Slytherin common room that had remained their headquarters that year when the world had changed and survival took priority over education, seven of his former housemates waited.  Seven, and he and Blaise made nine, and once there had been fourteen.  Soon there would be five, three, none, and Dumbledore would have to do his own dirty work.  Thoughts of snogging Potter had distracted him from Potter's thoughts of the old man's treachery, and here in the warm familiar torchlight even the idea seemed mad.  Voldemort might do such a thing but surely Dumbledore would not.  But if he would not, why would Potter have thought it?  Thoughts for daylight; now his attention must be all on the work ahead.  Wordlessly he led the way to Dumbledore's office and the briefing.

            The guard in the passage, a small dark girl he didn't recognize, let him in with barely a nod.  Everyone knew him, now.  Inside Dumbledore stood with his back to them, head bowed, somehow looking even older than usual.  Harry Potter slumped, boneless and exhausted, in the chair before the desk, and it was clear from the doorway that he had been crying.  Draco was suddenly and inexplicably afraid, as if something in him knew that what was about to happen would change everything forever.  Beside him Blaise reached for his hand, and he linked fingers with her gratefully.

            Dumbledore spoke, at last:  "Mr. Longbottom was captured during a raid on Lord Voldemort's headquarters in Wales this evening.  It is imperative, Mr. Malfoy, that the information Mr. Longbottom possesses does not fall into the wrong hands.  We will need you to retrieve Mr. Longbottom, at any cost."

            Draco blinked, startled.  That was it?  Neville Droopybottom?  Neville one-step-away-from-a-Squib?  "Of course, sir."  It was the sort of mission at which his team excelled.  A shame, though, to have to risk his people for the little fool.  His anxiety drained away as he focused on what must be done.  They had been inside Voldemort's fortress at Dolwyddelan only once before, and it had been difficult.  At least, though, they would have a rough idea of where to go this time.  And Dumbledore had just given them tacit permission to kill Longbottom if they must.  He turned to go, and Potter said after him, sharply, "Be careful, Malfoy."  It was neither a warning nor a benediction, but it touched a chord in Draco.

            It was snowing hard as they Apparated into the forest a mile outside Dolwyddelan.  Abruptly Draco was very sure that something was wrong.  He held up a hand for silence, and everyone froze.  They had done this before and they were very aware that their lives were at stake.  After an excruciatingly long moment in which absolutely nothing happened, he motioned them forward.  The ground beneath their feet was torn and muddy, no doubt from the fight that Potter's team had put up escaping.  On a clear day he might have been able to see the lurking towers of the rebuilt Riddle House; as it was he could barely see his hand in front of his face.  They dared not use magic, and so he led them slowly and carefully through the tangled thicket, sword at the ready.

            It was too quiet.  He could hear their breathing as they crept onto the grounds, careful to keep to the shadows.  The house towered over them, stark and unfriendly, a ghost of its former self brought to life by a powerful dark spell.  Longbottom would be in one of the rooms on the ground floor; most of the others were mere illusions, set to give the place an air of normalcy should it be discovered.  Voldemort did not know their spies had discovered it long ago.  They climbed through a dark window into a deserted room that led out into an empty hallway.  The Divulgence Charm (once used exclusively to detect adultery) Draco held showed only one presence anywhere in the building, and in the seventh room they tried they found him.  

Severus Snape, unbound and unconscious on the floor, and very nearly dead.  In the chair above him, Neville Longbottom sat.  He had torn out his own eyes before he died, and his face was frozen in a scream.  Too late, then.  Draco turned his head, willing himself not to be sick.  Behind him one of the others gagged.  He forced himself to kneel and check Snape.  He could not have found a pulse on the torn throat even had he brought himself to touch it, and so he reached for a wrist instead.  It was Snape's left, and the arm he bared was as unmarked as Draco's own.  Suddenly everything was appallingly clear:  Longbottom, with his remarkable (and unexpected) skill at ciphers, had been Dumbledore's spymaster, and if he had broken under torture, and revealed their chief spy, than Voldemort must have turned on him—turned on Snape.

"What do we do now?" Greg asked.  

"We'll have to get him home," Draco responded absently.  "He deserves that much at least—to die among friends if he cannot be saved."  Blaise had begun to tear strips from her robe to bind Snape's ripped throat.  Draco took them from her with a nod of approval.  "We'd best bring Longbottom as well," he added with a sneer.  "He's not earned it, but no doubt he'll get a hero's burial anyway."

In his ears Snape's heartbeat pulsed, weak and thready.  Draco dared not try to heal him here; the last time had drained him so he was afraid he would not be able to Apparate home.  They could not even risk a simple levitation spell without setting off Voldemort's wards.  Carefully he lifted Snape and Greg rushed to help.  They moved slowly through the empty house and back into the night, waiting for the ambush they knew must come.  

They were almost to safety when it came.  Tarquin was in the lead, only a step or two from the edge of the wood.  Vin, a stride behind, carried Longbottom's body, and Blaise was after him, and then Draco and Greg, with Snape.  There was a scream behind him, and he saw Blaise turn, raising her sword, and an arrow took her full in the chest.  Snape's pulse sounded in his head—too slow, by far—and she fell and he knew she was dead.  He did not remember what happened next, only that he and Greg were on the ground, crouched beside Snape, and Thea was dead and Kelso was down as well, an arrow in his thigh.  There were pops as Tarquin and Vin, obedient to the last, Disapparated to safety.  Pansy had her wand out, but her face was very white.  She knew how close to death they were.  

Out of the snow, dark robed and faceless as shadows, the DeathEaters came.  He was not sure how many there were, only that his decimated squad was desperately outnumbered.  His wand was in his hand, seemingly of its own volition.  He spoke the words Dumbledore had forbidden, the words that meant Azkaban even if used in self-defense, and one of the Death Eaters went down.  "Avada Kedavra," he said again, and again, and he knew that in the snow they could not see him, could not be sure who was voicing the spell they had never had to face.  Death Eaters died, but they died cleanly, by the sword, or messily when put to the question, or swiftly as an axe hissing downward in an execution.  They did not die by magic.  Now they faltered, and became human.  They began to Disapparate, and he counted the pops.  Five, and three more dead, and two left.

Both of those were men, one tall and straight and slender as a blade, and the other short and plump.  Two of them, against Draco, Greg, Pansy, Malcolm, and the wounded Kelso.  The odds had changed.  The shorter man seemed to have realized this.  He hissed, "Come on, Malfoy.  There's no shame in running from death."

The other man pushed back his hood to reveal hair like silver-gilt and a tired, handsome face.  "Is that what you think, Peter?" he asked, sounding almost amused.  "I've tired of running.  I'll not go back to my master a coward as well as a failure."

There in the snow and the growing pool of Snape's blood (and how could any man lose so much blood and live?  He must have a will like admantine) Draco said softly, "Avada Kedavra," and watched his father die.   Two things happened immediately.  Peter Pettigrew Disapparated so quickly Draco rather suspected he'd splinched himself, and on Draco's finger, the Malfoy crest etched itself into the onyx of his signet ring.  

Draco went blank for what seemed like a moment, and when he regained awareness he was sitting in a chair in the Hogwarts infirmary staring at the floor.  "Snape," he yelped, scrambling to his feet.  

Dumbledore, beside him, said curiously, "Don't you remember?  You've done everything humanly possible for him.  Only time will tell, now."

Everything came back to him in a rush, and he said thickly, "I'm going to be sick."  A basin moved itself into position, and for a moment Draco did not have to think at all.

Afterward Dumbledore stroked his back, and Draco, who hated to be touched, resisted the urge to pull away.  "It gets easier, you know, as time goes by," the old man said at last.

For a moment Draco was not sure he had heard correctly.  Then he began to get angry.  "What does?" he asked icily.  "Patricide?  Murder?"

"Watching your friends die," Dumbledore answered him.  "Eventually it won't hurt at all."

If he had not felt so wretched, Draco might have killed him then and there.  As it was he ran.  In the Slytherin common room they waited for him—six, where once there had been thirteen.  Great houses without heirs, parents without children.  Seven dead, and every one of them a piece of his heart cut out, and now there was nothing left.  "Come with me," he told the ones who were left, and they came because they loved him and had given their souls to his keeping.  Malfoys do what they must, and he knew what he had to do.  

As they walked silently down deserted hallways where once children had laughed, he thought of Snape, who had given up everything for love, and been used and discarded like a broken glass.  His valiant little group deserved better, deserved a chance at least of survival.  In betrayal lay safety, and he would betray them to save them.  

They did not question him, those who were left.  Blaise might have questioned him, but she was dead in the snow with her blood leaking from her mouth.  These fools followed him as if he there were no blood on his hands at all.  He could picture them behind him, though he did not look back.  Pansy and Malcolm, holding hands; Greg and Tarquin flanking the wounded and slightly lame Kelso, and Vin, alone as always.  He was destined to kill all those who loved him, but he would save anyone he could.

   They followed him into the room he had shared with Blaise, where the sheets were still rumpled and the air smelled faintly of her perfume.  They waited while he pried up the stone in the floor and found it, and they linked hands when he asked them to.  He knelt and took Vin's hand, and reached into the hole and drew it out.  A carved silver seal, heavy and familiar and strange, that flashed as the light changed.  It was done; there were no more decisions to be made.  He stood in the campaign room at Riddle House, and waited for his pupils to adjust to the dimness.  They had trusted him with their lives and been wrong, and they stood as if frozen when he detached himself and stepped forward into the light.

"My lord," he said to Voldemort.  "I have come to take up my father's position."  And on his left hand the Malfoy signet gleamed.  He did what must be done.  He was his father's son. 

AN:  Just to clarify a question that came up:  the "spell" Draco used on Sirius in Ch. 2 was not Dark Magic per se.  Sirius assumes this because he wants it to be the case.  It wasn't wandless magic, either, but you'll have to stay tuned to find out exactly what it _was._  Love, Ishafel.


	5. RememberAll Part III: All Along the Watc...

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

RememberAll III:  All Along the Watchtower

            '_Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose…' Janis Joplin, " Me & My Bobby McGee"_

Draco-present made a little choking sound, almost a whimper, and Harry looked over at him curiously.  He was very different from the shining child of memory, the boy whom Harry had once hated more than anyone or anything.  Now he was almost something to be pitied—almost, had he less pride, or more kindness.  But Harry had seen nothing in Malfoy to empathize with.  

In the mirror Draco-past stood coolly staring back at Voldemort, for all the world as if there were not a swordpoint just below his ear.  The DeathEater who guarded him looked terrified; it was as if he guarded Lucius Malfoy returned to life and not Lucius' beautiful, doomed son.  "Well?" Draco-past drawled in that hateful, posh voice that had so infuriated Ron when they were children.

It worked on Voldemort, too.  The Dark Lord stood, tossing back his cloak, and he must have worked some sort of spell because suddenly he loomed above Draco.  He was good-looking—He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was—if you like tall dark men with glowing red eyes.  Draco had never seen him in the flesh before, but now staring up at him he thought of his father's body crumpled in the muddied snow, of ravens eating Lucius' silver eyes.  He was not afraid because he had nothing left to fear.  

"Well, what, little Malfoy?  What is it you want from me?  Did you think you could march in and take up your father's place?  I know what you are."

"Do you?"  Draco looked bored.  "Do you really?  I have come to serve you but if you will not have me I will not beg your forgiveness."  The sword bit into his neck and he began to bleed.

"I did not say I would not have you," the Dark Lord answered guardedly.  He did not seem to be able to tear his gaze from Draco.  Draco looked up at him and silver eyes met crimson and it was Voldemort who looked away first.  Even a decade later and a lifetime away the force of what Draco had done was evident.  Voldemort beckoned Draco onto the dais, and raised their clasped hands into the air.  "My Second," he announced to his warlords.  "You will obey him as you do me."

Only, of course, it was not that easy.  He had strength enough to sway Voldemort for a moment; it was true, but he did not have enough to change the man's nature.  Voldemort had acknowledged him publicly, which had gotten him in the door, but he must still sell himself to an angry, frightened sociopath.  He submitted willingly to the Veritas curse, and answered Voldemort's questions to the best of his ability.  (_"Who are you?"_  "I am Dracovel, Earl of Malfoy, sixteenth of that name, and I am lord of Malfoy House."  _"What are you?"_   "I am only a man, my lord."  _"Why did you come here?"  _"I came that justice may be served."  _"Why did you kill your father?"_  "He asked me to."  _"How did you get to this place?"_  "My father gave me a Portkey for 'emergencies.'")  He submitted willingly to the dark mark, the Morsmorde:  stood quietly looking into the distance while the brand heated, and bit his lip to keep himself quiet when he  smelled the skin of his forearm burning.  It hurt, but he had felt pain before.  The Cruciatus curse was worse, but he knew that he deserved it and so he endured.  And then Voldemort raped him on the floor of one of the battered drawing rooms, while he admired the rotting tapestry on the wall and wondered if he were the only person in the world to snog the Dark Lord and the Boy Who Lived in less than forty-eight hours.  By then he had so far divorced his mind and body that he could barely feel Voldemort's burning skin on his.

Afterward, when the Dark Lord was dressing to go, Draco said to him, "What of the others?"

Voldemort laughed.  "Not to worry, Malfoy.  I'll tell them you're to be left alone."  

"No."  Draco struggled to his feet, surprised how much his body ached.  "The ones who came in with me.  They are utterly loyal—."

"Are they?"  The Dark Lord's voice was dry, disinterested.  He was fastening his pants now, tying his shoes.  Any moment now he would drop a twenty on the dresser and tell Draco he'd call.  "I tell you what, Little Malfoy.  Let them stand surety for your good behavior.  Let them be hostages for a while.  There's plenty of room in the dungeons; they need not be harmed unless you prove unfaithful."

Not a good solution, but the best he was going to get tonight.  And he knew that on matters such as this Voldemort was utterly reliable.  They would be safe, even if they weren't happy, and wasn't that what he wanted?  To keep someone, anyone, safe?  "Very well, my lord," he responded, hoping that his voice sounded suitably casual.  When Voldemort was gone he put his hand out, caught himself, just barely, on the wall.  Time to go home.  Time to sleep, to heal, and to work out a plan.  He was the Malfoy now, and he had certain responsibilities to his house, his name, and the people who looked to him for protection.  He was responsible for the survival of the Malfoy line, where once he had only been responsible to himself.  

When he let go of the wall Draco staggered.  He could not have Apparated (or, indeed, worked any other spell) to save his life—though at least the mark on his forearm made it possible to Apparate from the house.  His back felt like fire and his ribs ached and with every step his knees threatened to buckle.  He could not make his shaking fingers do up the buttons on his jeans, or the fastening on his robes.  In his pocket the Portkey that had brought him here was a heavy reminder of what he had done, and he wanted nothing more than to get clear of everything and pretend for a while it had never happened.

In desperation he did the only thing he could think of, went the only place that was still safe.  Turning the Malfoy crest on his signet ring in toward his palm, he said, "Take me home," and it did.  Confirmation, had he needed it, that his father was dead and that he was the new master of Malfoy House.  He only hoped his mother and her lover were not holed up somewhere on the property; he did not think he could bear to have anyone see him as he was now, or bear to see anyone.

The Aubusson carpet in the Red Morning Room was filthy, the fireplace cold and empty, the furniture covered in dust.  Over the fireplace a rather good (but dirty) Stubbs of two placid carthorses eating hay hung between tarnished silver candlesticks.  The horse on the left, the one Draco had nicknamed Blondie, whinnied a greeting but the grey only snorted warily at him.  Perhaps it could smell the betrayal on him.  He swore as he fell into a chair.  He had forgotten that the House Elves would have deserted the Malfoys as they had the other DeathEater families—a particularly brilliant move of Granger's, more demoralizing than they could have imagined.

It took him a long time to work up the energy to move again.  The sun was bright overhead as he staggered down the airless passage to his own rooms.  At least the house had sensed his struggle and moved his quarters as close as possible.  The dust lay thickest here, in a room that had clearly not been touched since he'd left it last a year and a half before.  The bed was cold, and the blankets smelled stale, but at least it was dry.  Dropping onto the bed with a force that made his bruised ribs ache, he muttered, "Incendio" and the fire sprang to life.  For a moment he considered letting it burn until the house came down 'round his ears but he was not yet devoid of all hope—not quite.  

Still later, when he'd roused himself enough to shower, Draco leaned against the sink and admired his bruises in the mirror.  "My, you 'ave grown up, 'aven't you?" the mirror asked fondly, in a tone of voice that would have made him blush had it come from anything but a sheet of silvered steel.  On his left forearm the skull brand stared back at him unwaveringly, though the edge of the scar he shared with Snape curled one side of its mouth so that it appeared to smirk.  On his right shoulderblade his dragon tattoo yawned delicately, opened an eye, and shut it again almost immediately.  There were surprisingly few new marks:  only the long scrape on his side where he had fallen carrying Snape, and small bruises on his back from the floor at Riddle House.  

He had been afraid he would dream of killing his father; half-afraid and half hoping.  But instead he dreamed of Harry Potter—that Potter had come to him wrapped in shadows and said to him, "Make love to me, Malfoy.  Pretend that I'm Blaise, and do it to me face to face."  And then Potter leaned in awkwardly and pressed his lips to Draco's, and when Draco pulled away his mouth was full of blood, and Blaise looked up at him with blood on her chin and tears in her eyes.  He woke, coughing and shivering, to discover that the sun was setting.  Voldemort had told him, "I will send someone for you.  Look for my man when it is full dark."   There was just time to dress and go into the library.  He sat at his father's desk and flipped idly through one of the estate ledgers, and ignored Peter Pettigrew when the one-armed man stumbled out of the fireplace covered in soot.

"Merlin," Pettigrew swore, brushing ashes from his expensive robe.  "Malfoy, I've told you a thousand times, have the damned hearth cleaned out!"

Draco raised a cool, amused eyebrow at him, though he was not in fact amused.  "Wrong, Ratface.  You told my father a thousand times.  Is that why you left him to die?"

The other man went red and then white behind the smears of black.  "You killed him yourself!" he blurted out and then looked sick.  "Draco, I did not mean—." 

Draco stood.  This kind of thing—the tiny power struggles that made up day-to-day life for a certain type of people—he knew.  This was a game he could play.  He knew well that if he crushed Pettigrew now at the very outset, the other man would stay well clear of him and the others would note it and stay clear too.  If he was going to be Voldemort's Second, he must lead.  Dumbledore's people were part of a delicate hierarchy of subtle mannerisms and friendships and unreturned favors; DeathEaters were ranked by blood and power.  He had the one and he had the means to take the other.  It was a pleasure to have things set out, to know all the rules.

Pettigrew did not grovel, not quite, but he fell back and gabbled an apology as Draco said kindly, "I haven't given you permission to use my given name, you know."  He moved by the other man, summoning the words of the spell, and Apparated to Riddle House.  

Pettigrew came after him, his face the color of chalk and eyes wide with fear.  "Malfoy," he panted.  

"Yes?" Draco turned, raising an eyebrow.  He dusted snow from his shoulders and pulled open the great heavy door of the house.  How odd, to enter a house by the front door, and have to open it oneself.  He hoped the House Elves did not become to accustomed to their freedom.  As he entered the hallway, Voldemort moved swift as a thought from one of the rooms on the left and nodded to Draco.

"Malfoy," he hissed, and his eyes sparked red through the gloom.  "It is good you have come.  I have some…unfortunate news for you.  One of your bondsmen is dead."

"Oh?"  Better not to show too much interest, surely.  If Voldemort knew what he was feeling he could use it as a weapon.  "A bit overzealous were we, Tom?"

He would not have believed it had he not seen it, but discomfort, and some other emotion Draco could not identify, flickered briefly on the Dark Lord's face.  He was human enough to feel, still.  But Voldemort's expression was unreadable again in a heartbeat, and his voice was bland as he said, "I did not touch him, Malfoy.  There is no trace on him of magic or of murder; his heart gave out."

Gregory Goyle lay on the cot in his cell, his body cold and beginning to stiffen.  There was not a mark on him, no sign of poison, and no indication of a spell.  He was simply dead, and the others stared at Draco like wild animals from behind their bars.  Their eyes were cold and unfriendly and he knew that they wanted to him dead.  Without a word he turned to go.

The others—the DeathEaters who were loyal to Voldemort, the ones who had pulled Snape apart, who spent their lives looking for an advantage, for the chance to tear each others throats out with their teeth—the others waited in Voldemort's warroom.  Voldemort, too, had a gigantic map pinned to the wall, decorated with little flags and colored thumbtacks.  Draco made a note to himself to invest in one.  Clearly it was the must-have campaign accessory this season.  Like Dumbledore, Voldemort had used black to mark DeathEater holdings, and crimson for the Resistance army.  On Dumbledore's map the forces had looked nearly even; here black had overwhelmed the tiny drops of blood.  Voldemort, like Draco, was a coward—he would not have begun a war he did not believe he could win.  It was nice to be on the right side for once.

   That night they Apparated to a great Gothic cathedral in the heart of Muggle London, and killed everyone present and torched the building.  It was nearly as beautiful burning as it had been in the height of its glory, all shadowed arches and colored flame against the starry sky.  It hurt to watch it fall, in a way even his father's death had not, and the reek of scorched flesh filled his lungs.  For the first time he wondered how the Muggles felt, what they thought of such deadly miracles.  In all the complicated little world they occupied, was there yet room for crimes of passion such as this?  Would they blame their White Christ, or one another?  He used the Malfoy signet to Portkey straight back to Malfoy House, despite Voldemort's orders.

In the central part of the house, in the part that had been Malfoy Keep and before that Malfoy Castle, before his grandfather had sold of the county of Malfait and kept only the manor and its grounds—in that central part that had been built a century before was the small door that only the current heir to the Malfoy legacy could open.  It was locked three times, once with a word—Veritas—and once with blood—Draco used his dagger to make a shallow cut in his palm—and once with magic—so that when he pressed the crest of his signet ring to the knothole in the door's center and worked the Alhomora spell it opened beneath his hand.

Inside the safe were the keys to the Malfoy vaults in London and Lucerne (both which would be drained by Dumbledore as soon as it was confirmed he had changed sides) and a sheaf of papers with account numbers for overseas investments—holdings in the Grand Caymans and New York, neither of which were allied with the British Allied Resistance Force.  It was not nearly so much as he had hoped, barely enough to start over with when the war was over.   There were deeds to the house itself and to the London flat that would have been made over to his mother had she not abdicated.  A brief will, naming Draco sole heir.   A thousand Galleons, and a pouch of uncut gems.  And, of course, a letter addressed to Draco, and sealed with silver wax.

Shutting the safe, Draco wandered back into his father's library, and sat down at his father's desk.  He looked for a long time at the folded sheets of parchment in his hand before he slit the seal and began to read.

_Draco,_

_If you are reading this than I am dead and at your hand.  I ask your forgiveness, my son, for the burden I placed on you, and yet I cannot bring myself to be sorry.  Malfoys do what they must, Dray—so it has ever been.  Remember this, wherever you go:  there is no Heaven waiting for men such as us, and so we must survive whatever the cost._

The Malfoy name—the Malfoy bloodline—must survive if the wizarding world is to survive; the great houses are bound now to the English soil and their magic sustains the very land.  The Malfoys were chancellors in Britain and kings in Normandie once, and it has been prophesied more than once that the destiny of our family is the destiny of our world.  Remember this, if ever you are in grave danger, that if your heart's blood is spilled the land itself may rise to your defense.

_I find as I write this that I am not afraid.  "It is the just man who like a bold lion, should be without fear."  Everything I have done and been, all of it was for this moment alone._

_You know everything that must be done, Dray; you are better prepared than I could ever have hoped for the position you will hold.  You have become the man I always hoped you would be.  Malfoys have always shaped their own destinies, by the sword if need be, and I know that you will do the same.  May the wind be ever beneath your wings, my dragon._

_                Lucis_

            So, his father forgave him—as if that made any of this easier to bear.  Draco folded the sheets in half, and then in half again, and slid them into his pocket.  Lucius would not have been so proud had he known what it was Draco would do before his body was even cold.  His father would not have let friendship, nor pride (and be honest, pride had driven him more even than love) force his hand.  His father would have had the truth from Dumbledore before committing himself.

That night Voldemort came for him, himself.  The Dark Lord did not use the Floo Network; instead he came striding into Draco's bedroom looking as pleased as a dead man walking could.  He wore muddy riding boots beneath his cloak and carried a crop in one hand, and he said to Draco, "Hurry and change, Malfoy—tonight we ride to Hogwarts."

Draco had been struggling with his shirt studs (almost enough to make one miss Dumbledore's host, where informal dress was not only permissible but encouraged.)  Now he dropped a cufflink and was forced to mutter a quick "_Accio_."  "Hogwarts?" he asked neutrally.

            Voldemort looked rather like a child with a new toy to show off.  "I thought you had some possessions to recover?" 

            "Of course," Draco responded, "I'll be with you in just a moment."

            The Dark Lord had tethered his Thestraals to the railing and they were busily eating the hedges, the roses, and a juniper bush.  Draco was torn between annoyance and amusement.  Trust a Mudblood not to know what the hitching post was for.  But it was pure joy to fly again, even on another's wings.  The gray mare Voldemort had allotted him was beautifully broken, powerful and fast and responsive to his very thoughts.  He was honestly sorry when they landed outside the gates of Hogwarts.

            "Follow me," Voldemort hissed when they had tied the horses.  He had worked some kind of obscuring spell, one Draco didn't know.  It made him look ordinary, harmless, made his scarlet eyes a watery blue Draco suspected had been their natural color.  Now, with their hoods up, wands in their sleeves, and swords sheathed, they could have been anyone—if anyone had come to Hogwarts in such times.  Voldemort led him round to the back, through a small, unguarded door into what must have been the servants quarters when Hogwarts students had been allowed personal servants.  

            They moved undetected and easily as a dream through the castle, while Draco wondered why Voldemort had not simply killed them all in their sleep.  He gathered those of his things worth keeping and magicked them small and cast a last glance around the rooms that had been his home.  "I'm ready," he told the Dark Lord.  The two of them were almost out when he felt a hand on his shoulder.  He turned, feeling rage and panic well up within him.  

            "Thank Merlin," the Weasley prefect panted.

            "Peter," Draco stifled a groan.  He could feel Voldemort's eyes on him, could almost hear the other man thinking of death.

            "Percy," the Weasel corrected.  "My name is Percy.  But it doesn't matter.  "You'd best hurry.  Dumbledore's called an emergency Council meeting—he has something he wants you to hear—."

            "I have something I want him to hear, too," Draco said pleasantly.  "Tell him he can shove his Council—."  The Weasel was so agitated that he made the mistake of putting his hand on Draco's arm.  Draco brought his dagger up and stabbed, hard, and Percy fell back without even a scream.  "Up his pompous ass," Draco finished.  He wanted nothing more than to be gone, but Voldemort had his kid in a candy store look again.

            "Perhaps we should join this little meeting," the Dark Lord purred.

            "Okay," Draco sighed, "but we can only stay for a minute.  It's getting late."

            The guard let them in immediately, and Draco turned to say something to Voldemort (Behave!) and realized that it was truly He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named that followed now.  Tom Riddle was handsome enough, a fortyish man of average height and size, and ordinary except for his eyes.  What stood behind Draco now was no man—it was taller by a handspan than the tallest man he had ever seen.  Its face was a skull's, paper-white and gleaming in the torchlight.  It put its hand on Draco's shoulder and steered him down the passage into the council chamber.  Draco paused just inside the doorway with all the light of the room on him, just as he had that first night, and waited to be noticed.

            After a long, drawn-out moment, all of the heads turned to him, mouths opening in terror or confusion, and Draco said them, "As I was summoned, so have I come.  But I have a new master now, and I serve a new cause.  I shall not come again."  

            The bony fingers on his shoulder tightened painfully and then released.  Voldemort was pleased.  At Dumbledore's right hand Harry Potter said flatly, "Avada Kedavra," and the air swirled.

            When everything had stilled again there was no sound but the Dark Lord's laughter, harsh and dry as the rattle in the throat of a dying man.  "Bravo," Voldemort remarked.  "Well fought, and yet I am twice safe from your little spells.  First, because death magic has no place here, and the Unforgivable Curses, no effect, and second because with your blood I gained your mother's protection.  I may no more be killed by that spell than you."

            "No, child, I did not come here to kill you but rather to warn you:  tonight this war begins in earnest.  All those who died before are nothing to those who will die in the future.  Here—a token of the first—."  He threw something small and silvery to Harry Potter.  Draco recognized it as the Weasley prefect's wedding band.

            Dumbledore was shaking his head sadly.  "Mr. Malfoy, what have you done?" he asked, and beneath the disgust Draco could have sworn he was pleased.  Had he hated having Draco fight under him so much that he would countenance even this?

            It didn't matter anymore what Dumbledore thought or did.  Soon enough he and all those who stood with him would be destroyed, because Draco had loved his friends too much, and his father too little.  "It gets easier, you know," Draco told him.  "Watching your friends die."  His fingers closed around Voldemort's bony wrist, and he pulled the other man out of the room and they both ran.  Not until it came time to mount their horses did he look at the Dark Lord again, and by then Voldemort was only a man once more. 

            At Malfoy House Voldemort did it to him once again, on the couch in the shabby Blue Drawing Room, and Draco closed his eyes to block the crimson gaze and closed his mind to what must be done.  For five months of fire and blood he pretended he was anywhere, anyone else; he went where he was told and he did what the Dark Lord asked of him.  Gradually he began to recognize faces in the DeathEater ranks, men and women who fought for Dumbledore but spied for Voldemort, and when he could he sent them to their deaths.  He told himself that it was because he hated traitors, and perhaps part of him did hate to be reminded of his own treachery.

            In late May the flowers began to bloom on the ground where his father had fallen and the temperatures soared and tempers flared.  Voldemort was winning the war, but slowly, and at great cost, and when Peter Pettigrew put his hand on Draco's arm once too often Draco forgot himself and killed him there in Voldemort's campaign room beneath the black-covered map of England.  For the first time Voldemort turned his rage on his second-in-command.

            They took his wand away and cuffed him with admantine, and threw him at the Dark Lord's feet.  "So, little Malfoy, you think you can defy me?" Voldemort demanded.  "You think that you can kill my servants?  Pettigrew was a rat, yes, but even rats have their uses.  He was not to be—thrown away—so carelessly."  Draco stared at up him sullen and wordless and no longer afraid to die, as Voldemort said, "Make him sorry."

            The other DeathEaters fell on him:  Lestrange, Nott, Rosier—cold and hard and angry.  They had hated Draco being raised above them and they were glad to see him fall.  Draco had been beaten before, had felt the Cruciatus Curse before, and he did not cry out.  He did not even cry out when Rosier took his jackal form and tore at his shoulder, though that was partially because he had passed out halfway through.

            When he came back to consciousness he was on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.  The DeathEaters had gone, and Voldemort was holding a searing blade to Vin Crabbe's eyes and laughing softly to himself.  Kelso's head regarded Draco from the table, mute with horror, and he could see Tarquin's body slumped to the left of the door.  Mustering what strength he had, Draco croaked, "Stop!"

            Voldemort turned to him.  "Did I not tell you the penalty for disloyalty?" he asked, and though his voice was cold, his eyes were merry and bright.  He enjoyed a spot of torture now and again.  Draco rolled slowly onto his side, to his knees, and finally to his feet.  Though he hurt more than he had ever hurt in his life he was relieved to find that everything still bent as it was supposed to.  He had been lucky; there was no serious damage except to his shoulder, and thank Merlin, he was left-handed.  He could still fight, even if there was no one worth saving.

            Voldemort seemed very sure of himself.  He watched (head cocked to one side like a particularly vicious robin) as Draco came at him, sword drawn.  And then suddenly he too held as blade, a burning, terrible weapon.  When the two swords met, Ferux flew from Draco's hand.  He did not stop to wonder that Voldemort had managed to disarm him.  He did not stop to think at all.  Instead he flung himself on Voldemort, saw the other man's eyes widen with fear as Draco's weight bore them both to the floor.

            Voldemort was protected from any spell ever written, any weapon forged.  But he had never imagined—could never have prepared for—an attack so fierce.  Draco had lost all command over himself; some times his hands were on the Dark Lord's throat, while at others it seemed he was in hawk shape, and his talons raked the other man's face.  He fought as he had never fought before, now when it seemed he had nothing left to fight for.  Voldemort fought back, but he was no match for Draco, and his struggles grew weaker and weaker until they stopped altogether.  

            Draco tore him apart and spread the pieces round the room, and, in hawk form, ate a few of the choicest bits.  Coming to himself again, he stumbled wearily to his feet and saw Rosier and Terry Nott in the doorway, holding Malcolm Bladdock between them, and Lestrange a stride behind them, clutching Pansy Parkinson by her hair.  When they saw his eyes on them, Rosier and Nott DisApparated, dropping Malcolm.  Lestrange came forward, laughing, the madness he had brought with him from Azkaban very clear on his face.  Lestrange liked blood, his own or others'.

            "What will you give me for the girl, Malfoy?" he asked now.  "I grow hungry."

            Draco named the first thing he could think of.  "Malfoy House."  It was the only thing he had the man might value; he had no comprehension any longer of the value of money and no need for a sword when he could use his teeth.

            Lestrange considered, and at last said, "Yes.  It is enough."  

Draco scribbled words on a sheet of paper, and handed it over.  What use was a house to him?  He was a dead man now; he would never dare set foot in England again.  Dumbledore and his hounds would hunt him forever, and he had no heir to worry about.  He said to Pansy, "Do what you can for him," and she moved around the table to kneel by Vin.  He could see her hands shaking as she fumbled to bandage the oozing burn where the man's eyes had been.  To Lestrange he said, "Give me ten minutes start, raise the Morsmorde, and then run."  Lestrange nodded.  He was a beast but he had an honor of his own.  Draco twisted his signet ring and was gone.  

He fell and the threadbare carpet rose up to meet him.  But he was on his feet again a heartbeat, trying to ignore the pain.  He transformed Ferux from a blade into a snub-nosed and silenced pistol, sleek and deadly if lacking in elegance, and wished her invisible.  The weight of her in his hand was the weight of a friend, but after a moment of thought he stashed her in the safe and pocketed a handful of gems instead.  There was no time to write a letter, and no one to read it if he died.  The Malfoy line died with him.  

In his bedroom Draco managed the spell to stop the bleeding, though he could do nothing for his shaking hands.  Shock.  How could Voldemort be dead?  How could thirty years and more of war be ended almost at random?  Surely rage and terror could not have succeeded where so many elaborate plans had failed?  And with Voldemort gone no one stood between Draco and the wizarding world, all of whom would want him dead for once reason or another.  He changed into jeans and a faded shirt, clothes that would go unremarked anywhere he found himself, gathered his resolve, and changed to hawk form and flew into the fading night.

He did not remember so much of what happened, very clearly.  He remembered that every wingstroke was agony, and he remembered stopping to rest, but he did not remember changing to human form, or bleeding in the street.  When he regained consciousness he was in a hospital room with a pretty nurse bending over him and a dying man in the bed to his right.  "You gave us quite a scare," she said to him, blinking flirtatiously.  "Can you tell us your name?"

Draco raised guileless eyes, blue as the summer sky, to her face, and shook his head regretfully.  "I'm not sure," he answered.  "Everything's a bit blurry just now."  (True enough!)

"You just get some rest, then," she told him with a smile.  Draco watched through narrowed lids until she was gone, and then he stood up.  His shoulder was a dull throb, counterpoint to every other ache in his body.  

In a cupboard by the door he found his things—his shirt, ruined now, and his jeans, still wearable, the Malfoy signet, his wand, and the little bag of gems.  Clearly they had not believed they were real.  The other cupboard yielded a wallet belonging to a Michael Conway and a set of clothes.  Draco put on his own jeans and Conway's shirt, and went into the bathroom and locked the door.  

Conway's wallet yielded a thick wad of bills of some sort, and a few coins, a shiny identification card with a picture of the man on the other bed, and a few scraps of paper.  Draco unlocked the door, took a long look at the dying man, shut the door, picked up his wand, and looked in the mirror.  It was simple enough to do, if you knew how:  a little Glammerie Charm, the kind of thing one barely needed a wand to perform.  It had been a favorite charm of the Dark Lord's because it could be adapted easily.  In the mirror his face grew subtly rounder, his skin pinker, his hair sandier.  When he looked down at his hands, they were broader, the nails ragged.  He pocketed Conway's wallet, the gems, and his wand, and went out into the city.

"Yes," Dumbledore-present said to Malfoy-present, "But it doesn't stop there, does it?  Where did you go from there?"


	6. Falls the Shadow

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Falls the Shadow

            He used Michael Conway's money to bribe his way aboard a transport ship loaded with horses, bound for France and slaughter.  He spent the night in the shadows, watched by dull, uncomprehending, and resigned eyes, large and beautiful as those of starving children or sacrificial virgins. The horses, crammed into far too small a space, were quiet as only those beyond hope could be.  They stood as still as broken toys:  heads low, ears flattened, delicate legs broken or bleeding.  Not for the first time, Draco wondered if Voldemort had been so wrong.  Surely a people who could do such a thing as this deserved genocide.

            From France he fled north to Germany, and then to Russia.  In Moscow he ran out of cash, and a young Muggle medical student took him in.  Iliana was like no one he had ever encountered, strong and brave and capable but desperate for affection.  After a few months he began to feel trapped by her, and after a year he moved on.  His shoulder had healed as much as it was going to and he was worried he had been far too long in one place.

            He flew south and east from Russia, and stopped to rest for a night in the desert, still in hawk form.  There a young Arab prince caught him, and though he did not know what Draco was he knew that he was special, and he bound him in jesses of admantine studded with emeralds.  For three years Draco slept in his mews and ate from his hand, and was content to be nothing more than he appeared.  When the prince died he was set free and it took him a very long time to remember that he had once had another form.  He made his way on foot to India, his mind half a hawk's and more than half mad.

            He had forgotten what it was to be human, to be among humans.  Calcutta took him by surprise in all its noise and disorder.  He was forced to steal food, and when he grew ill, to beg for it.  And there in the gutter, where his beauty and his pride and his brilliance had all deserted him, he found a copy of the _Daily Prophet_, shredded and crusted with mud and smelling strongly of fish.  "Five Years After Voldemort's Death," the headline announced, "Draco Malfoy Still Missing."  His own face stared up at him, eyes wide with shock and a smear of blood on its chin.  Even as he watched it turned away, disgusted by what he had become.

            Draco had never meant to go home, but for the first time he wondered about those he had left behind:  his mother, Lestrange—new lord of Malfoy House, Pansy, Malcolm and Vin, Harry Potter.  What had become of them all when he was gone?  He was afraid to know.  After a long time he mustered the energy to walk to the missionary hospital and have his fever treated.  The missionaries were kind, if rather too saintly for his taste; they gave him clothing and money, and did not ask him awkward questions about anything but his faith in Jesus.  He found that he had rather missed hearing English accents, being around people who thought he was of them.

            The missionaries got him a job as a deckhand on a huge private yacht.  It didn't pay much, and it wasn't pleasant working for a spoiled, rich playboy, but it took him to Australia, where he promptly deserted anyway.  It was sheer bad luck that the first job he was offered (a job he'd promptly accepted) turned out be on a wizard's ranch.  He was not recognized, though he'd long ago given up disguising anything but his coloring.  He was not recognized as Draco Malfoy, anyway; they knew he was a wizard, but they seemed to believe Luke Conway's patched-together story.  

             Ironically, he was happy there, for a month or so.  It was exhausting being a cowboy, but at the end of the day he had no trouble getting to sleep, and he did not dream.  After work they played Quidditch sometimes, disorganized games that usually ended only when it was too dark to see.  That was what got Draco into trouble:  that, and kindness.  All it took was one person remarking that he was good enough to play professionally.  After that they were all after him to try out for one of the state-sponsored local teams.  He invented a long and tragic tale in which he was injured in the war and dropped from the English team, and got carried away and added some rather touching (he thought) bits about his faithless sweetheart and poor disappointed dad. 

            He had thought that that the matter was over, but one day they brought in a visiting assistant-to-the-assistant-manager of the Chudley Cannons, a friend of a friend fortuitously in the area and open to bribery.  It was had to say whether Draco or Ron Weasley was more surprised, that moment when their eyes met across the Quidditch pitch and time slowed to a crawl.  But before Ron could fumble out his wand, Draco felt the Snitch drop into his open palm and he flew until the Weasel and the game and Australia were far behind him.  

            On a tiny island in the shining sea he caught a little commuter plane bound stateside to Los Angeles, and in the bathroom he did some cut and pasting to put together a very credible American passport and driver's license.  In L.A. the sun burned like a martyr's fire, but no one came for Michael Drake and Draco found work:  loading boxes on the dock, and later driving an enormous truck on a lonely highway.  He waited for Harry Potter to catch up for a long time, because he was growing tired of running.  

            From England came news of an amnesty for Death Eaters, but to Draco it sounded like death and he did not go.  Once or twice he cut his wrists with a razorblade and watched the blood run down his tanned skin, but something always stopped him from letting the blood run too long.  One night he used the razorblade to scrape away the fading Dark Mark on his left arm, and the wound that resulted grew infected and for a long time he did nothing.

            He did not die, though the pain his arm worsened gradually.  Slowly he drifted east toward England, doing odd jobs when he could and whoring himself to strangers—businessmen, truckers, fellow refugees—in cars or cheap hotel rooms when he could not.  The fever he had had in India returned, and he burned from the inside out.  Voldemort was nearly eight years dead.  

            There were a thousand thousand small towns between California and New York and after a time they all blurred together in his head.  In one such town, he spent his twenty-eighth birthday.  He had a little money in his pocket:  enough for a drink, at least.  Slumped in a booth in one corner of a deserted bar, he was startled when a young and very pretty girl slid into the seat across from him.  He was even more surprised when he realized she was not a girl at all.  He recognized the spell; it was as variant of the simple glammerie that the Dark Lord had favored—it made the beholder see only what was desired.  

            Something—some long lost stirring of pity—held him back from revealing what he knew.  The troubled child across from him needed the illusion more than he needed to break it.  He let himself be picked up, taken home; he made love to the boy as if he were with a girl and afterwards he held him and let him cry.  In return the boy Trishelle cleaned the wound in his arm and bandaged it, treated his malaria with bartered antibiotics, and cooked meals to watch him eat.  He wept when Draco left him, but he pressed on Draco a wad of Muggle dollars and a few Galleons from his coin collection.

            In New York Draco found a job as a bouncer outside a Muggle club, rented a small dirty apartment.  It was not a bad job, not a bad life:  he could always pick up extra money rolling drunks in Central Park or selling his body; he even got his pick of the beautiful, desperate boys and girls trying to get in to the Blitz.  For a man who balked at nothing short of murder there were always opportunities.  

New York was the most magical city he had ever seen—here the boundary between the worlds was so thin as to be almost nonexistent.  Draco learned that Harry Potter was still after him with all the fury of Arawn's Wild Hunt and none of its success.  He stayed low, kept himself to himself, and thought of England surprisingly infrequently until one day he read in a month-old, coverless _Prophet_ that his mother was dying.

            A better son might have caught the first available flight back to England to be with Narcissa in her time of need.  A better man might not have been where Draco was in the first place.  Draco had no pride left, and precious few illusions.  He doubted his mother would want to see him if she _were_ dying, and he rather suspected the whole thing was a trap.  It was just what a noble orphan like Potter could be expected to think up:  the fugitive returning home to comfort the last of his family.  

            In the end Draco decided to go home.  Death, or the Dementor's Kiss, could be no worse than a century more of waiting.  Potter would never give up until one of them was dead.  He scraped together enough money for an economy ticket to England, packed what he had that was worth taking, and left America forever.  And when he stumbled off the plane, Potter was waiting for him, and Draco gave himself up.

            Hermione said, "We'll take a short recess for lunch, and meet back here in half an hour.  I assume you all still have a few questions for Mr. Malfoy.  Harry, if I could have a word with you privately, please?"

            Harry started as if she'd woken him from a dream that was ten years long.  "Of course," he told her, and Sirius squeezed his shoulder reassuringly.  Dumbledore and the jury filed from the room, carefully not looking at Harry.  In the hallway Hermione stared up at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.  "I'm sorry," he whispered.  "I never meant for you to find out this way."

            Hermione pursed her lips.  "Didn't you?" she asked finally.  "You must have known there was a chance this would come out now.  Christ, Harry!  All those years, all those girls I set you up with—you couldn't have told me the truth?  You couldn't have trusted me?"  Her eyes began to fill with tears.  "Oh, Harry, I thought we were best friends!  I thought you—."

            "I'm sorry,  'Mione," Harry stammered.  "It was only the once, I swear it.  I know it was wrong…"

            "Harry Potter!" Hermione sniffled imposingly.  "You must know that I don't care about that—I don't care if you love women or men, or hippogriffs!  Honestly Harry!  You must know that I'm the Minister of Magic, I can repeal that law.  It should have been repealed years ago anyway.  If you want Draco, than I want you to have him."

            "I'm not—."  Harry was having trouble thinking, much less talking.  "Well, not with a hippogriff anyway!  I don't know what I want, and Malfoy—he has bigger problems.  I just, I'm so glad you're okay with this, Hermione.  I was so afraid you'd hate me."

            "Harry, I could never hate you," Hermione said solemnly, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.  "I'm going to go fix my makeup—I must have mascara all over my face."

            Harry watched her go, fighting back tears himself.  Acceptance was something he'd never dared hope for.  Only when Hermione was completely out of sight did he turn back.  Malfoy was still slumped at the table, his head on his arms, and Sirius still guarded him.  There was no judgment in Sirius' kind dark eyes, and only a hint of sadness.  They were all of them taking this better than he'd any right to expect.

            He cleared his throat as he crossed to the table, and Malfoy sat up with a jerk.  His face might have been carved from marble, for all the warmth in it, and from that angle Harry could see the strands of silver-gilt mixed with gold in his hair.  But Malfoy had his own worries:  his very life on the line, and his soul almost certainly forfeit.  He would be _lucky _if the Commission kept him as a stud; for all his high birth and fallen angel's face and tremendous powers, he was the most hated man in England.  A better man than he would still have trouble feeling happy for Harry.

            Malfoy said, "Is there somewhere we can go to smoke?  I'd kill for a cigarette."  Harry must have flinched, because he added, a little bitterly, "Not literally, Potter."

            Harry and Sirius untied their prisoner from his chair and led him down a dark maze of hallways to a small balcony jutting out over what had become a car park.  Malfoy, when they let him go, went at once to the railing, and gulped for air.  Harry fumbled out a crumpled pack of Marlboros and handed them 'round, and Sirius lit them with a flick of his wand.  Harry took a drag of his cigarette and wondered if, forever after, tobacco would taste like celebration and fear and wind.

            Draco, leaning out into the sky, was aware of the two men behind him.  He knew that there was something they wanted him to say, though he could not imagine what it was; he knew that once again he was failing Harry on some fundamental level though he did not really care.  "What would you do if I jumped?" he asked idly, all the while calculating.  Six stories, no broom, no magic, no way to Transfigure, nothing but a freefall and a hard landing.

            After a moment of frantic silence, Black said to him, "You won't jump, Malfoy; suicide is not your style and even if it were the purebred houses frown on it, and I'll wager your father thought it was a foolish weakness."

            "Can I have another cigarette?"  Draco made his voice as plaintive as he could, and was surprised to hear Black laugh.  Surprised to realize he could like this man his mother had chosen over his father.

            This time it was Potter who answered, and Draco could hear the anger in his clipped voice.  Potter would not take any mention of suicide lightly—not today and not from Draco Malfoy, on whose wrists the scars gleamed numerous and ugly as acid raindrops.  Potter was ready to go inside, and that meant they all must go. 

            The jury assembled to hang him was already in their seats when Draco was led in.  He looked more closely at them, this time, now that the greater part of his ordeal was over and he could begin to think again.  Roan Atkinson was fiftyish, perhaps a little younger—short and dumpy with long snarled gray hair and bad teeth, but kind eyes.  Sturbridge was tall, lean, and distinguished, beautifully dressed in a plain dark suit.  Dumbledore.  Dumbledore looked the same, maybe a little older, a trifle more careworn; all too clearly the same smug bastard that he had always been.  They did not any of them look inclined to mercy.  He wondered if it hurt—the Dementor's Kiss—did it take a long time, or did you lose all awareness of time as soon as it began?  Even the thought made him shiver:  that he could spend the rest of his life aware that something was missing, and not know what it was, not have any way to communicate or even to scream.  At his back Sirius Black stood like a man turned to stone, Black who had been to Azkaban and emerged pure, stripped to the bone but sane.  Black would be more than willing to save Draco for his mother's sake, if there had been anything left to save.

            Draco did not look at Harry Potter, but it was like being in a room with a loaded gun and not looking; Potter was always at the edges of his awareness—had always been.  "I have a few questions for Mr. Malfoy," Sturbridge said mildly, and Draco turned his head so quickly that his neck cracked.  Sturbridge was fiddling with a silver-plated pen, taking notes on yellow paper pad.  He seemed to be a prototype for a better breed of Muggle:  cleaner, more elegant and polite, sharper than any Muggle Draco had ever met, as if Dumbledore had bred and raised him in captivity only to produce him for the wizarding world to see.  

            "Yes?" he asked in the tone one might use to quell a servant (if one were Draco Malfoy) making it clear that he at least did not consider the man an equal.

            Sturbridge seemed more amused than offended, but no doubt he could afford to laugh at Draco now.  "I'd like to know why your family became—involved—with the Dark Lord."

            "I see," Draco answered, even though he didn't.  He marshaled his thoughts.  "My father—."  What as it Lucius said?  A Malfoy did what must be done and the devil take the hindmost.  Much luck it had brought either of them.  "My father knew Tom Riddle a long time ago; my mother's family is related to the Riddles in some way, though it goes back about thirty generations.  Riddle was—one of those uninvited cousins.  The sort you'd like to forget, that stands by the punch bowl at parties and no one talks to.  He and my father were at Hogwarts together but they did not get on then.  Riddle had been brought up in a Muggle orphanage and he had strange ideas."

"One of them—one of them was that Muggles possessed some kind of new technology so powerful as to be capable of ending the world.  He called it an "atomic bomb," and he was obsessed with it.  He believed that Muggles were stockpiling the things and planning some sort of final apocalyptic battle from which no wizard would walk away.  My father—Lucius did some research into the thing, mostly with the goal of humiliating Riddle, and discovered that there was a certain amount of truth in Riddle's lies; Muggles did have the capability to destroy the world something like thirty times over.  There was no conspiracy—worse, there were a handful of unstable governments, trying to prove themselves by force.  Lucius allied himself with Tom Riddle because Riddle was the only one who believed in this thing."

"When it started out, they were going to find out how to stop this disaster—to defeat death.  And they—they were kids, you know?  They wanted to be heroes, to save the world and redeem themselves and all that sort of thing.  But Riddle, Riddle turned out to be the Heir of Slytherin, and people died who shouldn't have, and then they were scared and they kept covering things up, and digging themselves deeper into the hole in the process and somewhere along the line they went from heroes to madmen.  But my father meant to save the world when he started."

Atkinson made a small noise that might have signified assent or disapproval or any of a number of other things, and Sturbridge noted something on his pad.  Draco just barely held back a sigh.  They were taking _notes_, as if what he said might be useful someday.  How can we avert another holocaust?  Well, let me check my notes, maybe Draco Malfoy said something relevant.

Atkinson asked, "When your father wrote that, "the land itself might rise in your defense," what did he mean?"

Draco looked at her carefully from beneath his eyelids before he answered.  "That's an old legend, ma'am; I'm not sure how accurate it is.  But Lucius believed that a long time ago the six wizards who were companions to the Conqueror made some sort of covenant with—with each other that they would maintain a certain balance.  And somehow they bound their destinies to England's, and swore that they and their heirs would rise forever to defend the land, and in return it would defend them if it were called upon.  But it only works for the last of a house, and only if the cause is just.  To the best of my knowledge it has not been tried in years, but the wizarding houses have kept their part of the bargain and England has never been invaded.  Somehow for my father it all got mixed up with what Voldemort was trying to do."

"Which houses were involved in this pact?" the Mudblood breathed.  He might have known:  she might have been political now but she was just as much a bookworm as ever.  

"Slytherin," he said.  "Malfoy, Plantanaget, du Parc, Devereux, and de Michel.  Slytherin's line is ended, now; the Plantanagets have been dead for five centuries.  The Malfoys and the Parkinsons, you know; the Devereux family intermarried with just about every house and finally with Muggles and Merlin knows who their heir would be; de Michel became Weasley.  But we have stood for England, all of us, though we do not always agree on the best way to serve."

"Interesting.  Thank you, Mr. Malfoy." Atkinson made another note and looked around.  "Professor Dumbledore, did you have any questions?"

Dumbledore looked Draco full in the face when he answered.  "No."  His voice was soft, even.  "There is no explanation or apology for what I have done, and I require neither explanation nor apology from Mr. Malfoy.  I am prepared to render judgment."

"Judge not let ye be judged," Draco said flippantly, and probably unwisely.  All those miles, and all those years, and Dumbledore could turn him back to a sullen thirteen-year old with nothing but a glance.

"Indeed," Sturbridge's voice was heavy, polite.  Draco wondered if he could be some kind of machine.  "I believe some discussion of the charges is in order, before judgment is given."  The Mudblood raised her wand and worked some sort of silencing charm or spell Draco didn't know.  It hid the three members of the jury behind a sheet of wavy glass, so that even if he had been inclined to read their lips and learn his fate he could not have.

He and Potter and Granger and Black sat quietly staring at the flat silver surface of the mirror still lying on the tabletop.  Granger caught his eye and smiled at him—a small, nervous smile, but a real one.  Draco felt one corner of his mouth lift in response, and the Mudblood blushed and looked away.  Potter was staring at the table, at his hands, no doubt looking for traces of blood.  He had short, blunt fingers, bitten nails, inkstained and tanned and work roughened:  the hands of a farmer, Lucius would have said, and not a nobleman.  Blood did tell, in little things like that.   

Abruptly the glass vanished and Draco blinked.  "Dracofel Malfoy," Dumbledore read, "You have confessed to the following crimes:  Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit murder, nineteen counts.  Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit grievous bodily harm, three counts.  Use of an Unforgivable Curse to commit grievous mental harm, six counts.  Sodomy, four counts.  Treason, one count.  Use of magic in the presence of Muggles, thirty-seven counts.  This Council has agreed to drop all charges of treason on the grounds that your actions were provoked.  The statutes of limitations for sodomy and illicit use of magic have been exceeded and so those charges have also been dropped.  In addition, we have determined that on three occurrences the Avada Kedavra was used in self-defense and in the best interests of the state and so those charges have been revoked.  Therefore this Council charges you with sixteen counts of murder, three of battery, and six of torture.  Mr. Sturbridge will now read the sentence."

Sturbridge glanced around as if to make sure that everyone was paying attention, and then recited, "Each of these charges is punishable by not more than eight years of time in Azkaban, or one hundred years total.  However, the Ministry of Magic has granted to this Council the power to recommend that in certain cases the Dementor's Kiss be effected if it is in the best interest of the people of England.  In this case, we do so recommend.  It is our belief that Mr. Malfoy poses a serious risk of escape.  This decision has been reached unanimously and has been found to be in accordance with national and international Muggle and wizarding laws.  Minister, do you concur?"

The Mudblood sighed soft as a headsman's axe swishing down, while Draco stared at his face in the mirror and wondered if he were supposed to be grateful or sorry not to die here today.  But the Kiss was a fate worse than death, worse than lying down in the snow and feeling his body slow, worse than bleeding his heart out on a concrete floor, worse than the oblivion found in a needle, in the bottom of a bottle.  Granger said, "I do concur," and Draco felt himself let out a breath he had not even known he was holding.  

Harry Potter stirred, and stood.  "Before you give him the Kiss I'll know why you did what you did, Headmaster.  I loved you like a father once, and I've kept silent all these years for that, and because with Malfoy gone there was no one left to speak for.  But I want the truth."

Dumbledore raked trembling fingers through his beard and stared at Harry.  To Draco he looked like one of those Muggle drawings of God, an old and troubled man, bearing the weight of the world on hid shoulders.  "Potter," he forced himself to say.  "Stop.  I'm tired and I want this over before I lose my nerve.  Whatever he says won't change what I did—what I deserve.  Don't ruin more lives over this—."   Potter glared and Draco stopped.  He too wanted to know how Dumbledore had justified this to himself.  Had he truly believed some lives were worth less than others, that the lives of the Slytherins were worth nothing at all?  

And Dumbledore was saying, "I did what I must; I did what was foretold.  I did what anyone would do, Harry Potter, and I need not justify my actions to you.  It is by my results history will judge me."

But Harry looked the older man square in the face and said, "No.  It is not only history that can judge you, and your results cannot justify your actions if Malfoy's do not."

"Mr. Potter."  Atkinson's round _face_ was worried.  "Professor Dumbledore is not on trial here.  Please, these are questions that must be asked, but not today."

            "Wait," Draco could not keep the bitterness from his voice.  "My life is on the line today."

            "Not your life," Sturbridge pointed out mildly.

            Draco let himself sneer at the man.  "Do you want to know what I think?" he asked the room at large.  He closed his eyes and let the words come to him.  "I think that you did what you did because—because—because you wanted me dead.  Not _us_, all of us, but me specifically.  You thought—you knew that I would betray you.  You needed me to betray you, and you need me dead now.  You went back in time.  Not with a Time Turner, either.  You wrote a letter, or put the memories in a Penseive, and you—you worked an Hourglass spell, the Tiempo one!  You went back and told yourself how Voldemort would be defeated, and you told yourself something else, too, something else I'm meant to do, that you want to prevent me doing.  You could have undone us all, playing with time like that!  What is it I'm supposed to do, that was worth risking that?"

            Dumbledore whispered, so that they all leaned in to hear him, "I don't know.  The spell only lasts an hour—there wasn't time.  I only know that the world will be better without you."  His voice grew firmer, more commanding.  He sounded once again himself, only desperately tired.  "You yourself, Mr. Malfoy, believe that hundred dead is not too small a price to pay to save a hundred thousand.  Can you say honestly that one life is worth more than hundred thousand?"

            "If it is mine…" Draco drawled.

            "Shut up," Potter hissed at him furiously.  "What you're doing is wrong, Professor!  You can't play with people's lives like that.  It isn't—."

            Draco inserted, "Fair?"

            Potter countered, "Ethical.  It's no better than what Riddle and Malfoy were trying to do.  You can't give him the Kiss because he might commit a crime some day.  You have to take your chances on him like everyone else, and hope for the best."

            "I know that there is truth in what you say, Harry," Dumbledore sighed.  "Yet how can I be responsible for what might happen?"

            No one said anything for a very long moment, and then Draco asked sweetly, "Why should you be responsible for it, Professor?  Shouldn't responsibility fall to the Ministry?  Isn't this meant to be a democracy?  As far as I can see you don't operate any differently than Voldemort did.  We were supposed to be able to trust you.  We gave you our lives and you threw them away; you all of you treated us like trash—it's no wonder that Slytherins go bad.  You get what you expect!"

            "Mr. Malfoy!  Not another word from you, or I'll turn you into a horse and use you to pull my carriage!"  Draco shrunk down in his seat at Atkinson's words.  He _was_ tired, tired of all of this, and he wanted suddenly to fly away, to fly into the sun until his wings gave out and he fell forever.

            "If we don't give him the Kiss, what can we do with him?"  Granger was asking.  "We dare not put him in Azkaban and we cannot let him go free."

            "As to that…"  Heads turned as Sirius Black spoke for the first time in hours.  "I have an idea.  If you'll permit me to summon a few colleagues?"  He strode to the door, put two fingers in his mouth, and gave an enormous whistle.  A moment later two men and a woman appeared in the corridor.  Draco, having grown unused to casual magic, was startled until he realized they must have Apparated at Black's signal.

            The man was Charlie Weasley.  Potter stood, clearly expecting trouble, and Draco sank further down in his seat.  "The Minister for Sport, everyone," the woman, an aide of some sort, announced cheerfully and withdrew.  That left Weasley and the chunky older man.  Draco felt a twinge in his ribs, but he knew quite well that this Weasley was above such things.  If Charlie Weasley wanted him dead he would die.

            "Ladies and Gentlemen," Weasley began.  "I would like to introduce Terry Jamieson, coach of the British National Quidditch team.  Terry has a proposal for the Council."

            Jamieson, clearly unused to public speaking that did not involve screaming obscenities at players, looked a little bit lost.  "I, we, that is, England has, the World Cup is in a month, and we haven't got a Seeker for the team.  I'll be damned, er, dashed, if I know where we're going to get one now.  So I, we, were wondering if you could spare Malfoy to play for the team, put off his execution for a while is all.  You could still take his wand and keep him you know cuffed or whatever."

            "But—."  Potter looked like a child that had just seen a bowl of candy snatched away.

            "Yes!" Granger's voice was excited.  "Harry, it could work!  He could stay in your flat, you've got a spare bedroom!  Oh, that would be perfect!"

            Black, visibly amused, cautioned her to slow down, but Draco could see that the proposal was finding favor.  He turned his most charming smile on Atkinson and Sturbridge, doing his best to project innocence and altruism.  Look at me, he thought, Draco Malfoy, who needs a second chance desperately, if some one would only have faith—."

            "After all," Atkinson said obligingly, "We do always seem to get what we expect.  Perhaps if we had more faith, we would be rewarded."  Thank you, Draco thought, bless all liberals for their willingness to be kind when the cost is unclear.

            Sturbridge nodded solemnly.  "If we take suitable precautions, I do not see why we should not take advantage of Mr. Malfoy's skills.  He can always be given the Kiss when he is no longer of use.  What do you think, Professor?"

            Dumbledore's shoulders sagged.  "Perhaps," he said at last.  "If Mr. Potter is agreeable than perhaps something could be arranged.  Yet this does not mitigate the danger waiting in the future."  You owe me, Draco thought very hard at him, willing his eyes to widen in delight.  It was not the same without magic, but Dumbledore was bending.  And Potter—Potter wanted Draco's body, and what was a few nights work compared to an opportunity like this one.  He had dreamed, once, of playing Quidditch for England.

            "Yes," Potter said reluctantly.  "I agree." 

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed this chapter:  Mouse Misfit, Ryllis, Vampire Goddess Jekyll, Cloud, Penguin, Yoink Daydurfits, Tsuyuno, mistykasumi, Summer, wyrd2Burfrnd and Tsukasa.  Here ends Part I (The Past) and begins Part II (The Present).  Next chapter:  Harry learns that there is more to happiness than sex, Ron has a change of heart, Hermione experiences a new development, and Draco plays much Quidditch.  Love, Ishafel


	7. Come As You Are

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Come As You Are

            They had not been in Potter's crappy, half-furnished flat in Hogsmeade for more than ten minutes before Potter had Draco's back against the wall, and his tongue rammed down Draco's throat.  And in ten minutes more he had Draco flat on the bed, and was coming into him face up as if he were a woman.  Draco was not so much upset as surprised; he had known Potter wanted—that—of course, but he had somehow thought the Boy Who Lived would be more civilized about the whole thing.  He had certainly expected to enjoy it, at least a little; as it was Potter came and rolled away and went to sleep almost in the same breath.  After a while Draco got up and took a shower.

            Wrapped in a towel (all his things were still at Black's place in the City, and he'd not thought to ask Potter for pajamas) Draco went into the bedroom he'd been allotted and threw himself on the bed and lit a cigarette.  He felt as if things were happening to him uncontrollably fast; he'd been a heartbeat away from disaster six hours ago and now he was Seeker for the British Quidditch team and Harry Potter's lover.  The room he presumed he was meant to sleep in was small and bare, holding only a double bed and a rickety dresser, but he liked it.  Sleeping with Potter was an intimacy he was not really prepared for.

            That was the other thing—Potter.  He could cope with the rest of it, no magic, no sharp objects, and no privacy; he could stand to be babysat and he could certainly play Quidditch.  But he was not sure where he stood with Potter.  He could not remember having agreed to anything, though he could remember Potter shooting him longing looks throughout the day, Potter speaking up for him when he thought he was doomed.  He should have remembered that Gryffindors never did anything for free.  And now he was what, exactly?  In the middle of the thought his eyelids dragged shut, and he stubbed the cigarette end out on the metal bed frame more by accident than design, and slept.

            In the morning Potter woke him by throwing open the curtains and letting in the sun, and it was so bright Draco was momentarily blinded.  "Get up," Potter said, "You've got practice in an hour."  Draco dragged himself out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, leaving the door open as required because he was a substantial investment for his country and if he topped himself or ran they'd be screwed.  He shaved himself haphazardly in front of the chattering mirror while Potter watched silently from the doorway.  It was luck alone that kept him from slitting his own throat, and he thanked Merlin he was so fair he didn't need to do this daily.

            Practicing with the team brought home to him for the first time what it was Voldemort had done to England.  Oh, they had not fielded a World Cup team since his fourth year at Hogwarts; he had known that.  He had known that the standard of professional Quidditch was supposed to have declined.  Still, he had been half disbelieving when they'd been so intent on having him play.  He had thought it might be a diabolical joke on Weasley's part.  He was good; he knew that he was good.  He might even have been good enough to play professionally back in the old days.  But he was not brilliant.  He was no Harry Potter.  They should not have been so eager to have him play—no doubt they would not have been, had they not been so desperate.

            His teammates were children.  They were none of them old enough to have been at Hogwarts when he'd left England (had there been a Hogwarts then).  Most of them were not from Pureblood families and not one of them had ever seen a Death Eater in person.  To them Draco was an anachronism, a specter of a grim and ghastly past.  They refused, to a wizard, to shake his hand, as if he might bear some terrible germ contagious simply by touch.  

            If this was the best England had to offer they were worse than in trouble—they were screwed.  Draco, catching his breath midway through the morning, could not help but feel a little bitter.  He knew it, the coach knew it, and even Charlie Weasley knew it.  Only these brave, stupid children had failed to realize:  this team was being fielded for the sake of pride, some misguided patriotism, and not out of any hope for victory.  Even the best Seeker in the world, Viktor Krum and Aidan Lynch rolled into one, could not have saved them.  They were talented, and mounted on the best brooms ever made, and they were going to be utterly humiliated.

            The worst of it was, in five years, a decade at the outside, they might have been a brilliant team.  They only needed experience, and that was the one thing they could not get in a month—the instinct that developed slowly and gradually.  Draco had it, or had had it once and would regain it; he had honed it through those long years at Hogwarts, desperate games against better, older players.  These kids hadn't had that opportunity.  In their time Hogwarts had not had enough students to field four House teams, and they had played only friendly pretend matches before they graduated and were recruited by professional teams.  There, they flew reserve behind more experienced players the clubs had imported from around the world.  Now they would face those players across the pitch and they did not stand a chance.

            And yet, what right did Draco have to be disappointed?  This was still the opportunity he had dreamed of.  Still a thousand times more than he deserved.  He only hoped he would not be executed, when his team failed to advance beyond the first round.  There was not time for more than hope, because whatever his teammates lacked in skill and seasoning, they were still ten years younger and fitter than he.  Draco found it was all he could to keep up with them in the drills and sprints.  By the end of the day he was exhausted, dripping with sweat; his shoulder ached and his ribs and his lungs and his legs, and he had a bruise on his stomach starting from a mishit Bludger, and he had never imagined he could be so glad to see Potter waiting for him to take him home.  

            Over the next three weeks his life developed a relatively stable routine—Quidditch all day, and after, Potter taking him on the bed or in the shower or on the rug in the living room.  He had never worked so hard in his life.  One or two nights a week Potter had "Auror business" which Draco suspected meant drinking with that fiend Ron Weasley but didn't really care to ask about; on those nights he was watched by Granger herself.  His life was a blur of brooms and sex and cigarettes and Indian takeaways, and in what little time he had to himself he read his way through Potter's old textbooks, stored in the closet of his bedroom.  He knew more than he cared to about the science of Divination but without his wand he couldn't do much to discover his future.  There was always the risk that there was nothing to discover.

            And all the time, Potter was making him remember things he would rather have forgotten:  a mouth on his, hard enough to make his lip bleed, and fingernails on his body that left small scrapes.  Potter was as careless, and as cruel, as Voldemort had been; he seemingly gave no thought to Draco at all.  Draco did not fight him, did not force him to make it rape in truth, but he did not participate either.  He lay quiet and still, turned his head away and did not watch—there was little pleasure in it for him.  He wore high-collared robes to cover the bite marks on his neck, the bruises on his wrists.  He wondered what it meant, that Potter found pain so intriguing, but he did not protest when Potter pressed hard on the bruises he'd gotten playing Quidditch, and he did not cry out when Potter slapped him.  What could he have done; whom could he have told?  He could not have borne anyone knowing what it was Harry Potter did to him.   

            It was easier to ignore the things Potter said, because after all, they were only words.  Words no longer had any power to hurt him.  He answered the too-casual, cruel questions with a word or two, did not attempt to defend himself.  Did he celebrate the pagan holidays?  (Potter had heard that pureblood wizards danced naked on the spring Solstice.)  As if the Malfoys did not change religions when the fashions changed.  Was it true that his father had beaten him?  (Potter had heard that he'd liked it.)  As if anyone would enjoy that—there was a difference between sadism and plain old punishment.  Did he really believe that Lucius had wanted to die in Draco's place?  (Potter couldn't believe anyone could really love Draco that much.)  And yes, Draco believed that, but then, he had to.

            Spring rolled seamlessly into summer and on the first weekend in June Narcissa and Sirius Black threw a garden party at their house in Kent, and Harry took Draco to it as his date.  Draco had not realized until then what it meant, Potter's godfather being married to his own mother.  He sincerely hoped that there would not be too many of these family gatherings.  He had not seen Narcissa since the long ago birthday on which she'd told him she was leaving Lucius; though he'd been glad to learn she was not dying he was not eager to see her now.

            The Blacks had a comfortable, cheerful house, and Draco looked around him wide-eyed as he and Potter stumbled out of the fireplace.  Everything was normal, tidy and ordinary; there was none of the cool opulence of Malfoy House.  And on the lawn, seated in the midst of a number of her guests, Narcissa Malfoy seemed every bit the housewife.  She wore a simple flowered dress, and her hair was loose on her shoulders; though she must have been more than fifty she looked barely old enough to be a mother to the child she held.

            When Draco would have hung back (hell, would have run, truth be known) Potter dragged him forward.  "Hullo, Jamie," he said.  "Narcissa, you look wonderful."  He leaned in so that she could kiss his cheek, and patted the head of the chubby boy on her lap.  

"Narcissa," Draco echoed, his voice flat even to his own ears.  He bent his head and kissed her hair, straightened and stared without meaning to.  He had not known until now that his mother had had a child with Black, and he could not stop himself looking over his baby brother.  Jamie Black was maybe three at most, soft and rounded and sleepy in the warm sun.  Draco, thinking back to baby pictures of himself, could not see any resemblance at all; he had been a thin, pale child, all angles and eyes and difficult questions.  Not an easy baby to love, as this one seemed to be.  His mother had not said anything to him, not even his name; after the first moment she had not even looked at him.

She was making small talk with Potter now, and he had leaned down to take the child from her arms and pressed its cheek to his.  Draco turned away, unable to watch.  He was angry, though he had no right to be; hurt, though he would never have admitted it to himself.  No one had ever loved him so easily and unconditionally as that, as his mother loved Potter or Potter loved the child.  He wanted it though he knew he did not deserve it.  

A friendly hand clapped him on the shoulder.  He whirled, rage welling up in him, to face Sirius Black—the man himself.  "Malfoy, there's someone that wants a word with you," Black said, and Draco let himself be drawn away.  He walked beside Sirius Black, noting that his shoulders were just even with Black's, that their strides matched, that they moved the same way, and he wondered who he might have been had Black been his father and not Lucius, had he not always worn his parentage like a brand on his face.  Would his life have been easier?  "You'll have to forgive your mother," Black was saying, and Draco sighed.

"There's nothing to forgive," he answered, and his voice was soft, unhappy, a child's voice.  He felt like a child; he could have cried, thinking what a ruin he had made of his life.  He swallowed hard, desperate to get the taste of weakness out of his mouth, and said again, more strongly, "There is nothing she could do that would need my forgiveness."

Black told him, very gently, "There are always things to forgive.  Narcissa is sometimes harsher than she means to be; it is not—not that she is not pleased to have you home, only that she is not quite sure how to express her feelings."  Draco thought, but didn't say, that it seemed unlikely Narcissa _had_ feelings.  Let Black discover for himself how cold she could be.  In the large, cluttered living room, Charlie Weasley waited, his back to the door.  Draco felt a momentary surge of panic.  He would not, could not, submit to the Kiss—but Weasley turned a half-hearted smile on him, as if he knew what Draco was thinking.

"Malfoy," the other man greeted him, pleasantly enough.  "How have you been?  Are you enjoying playing for Jamieson?"  He put out his hand and Draco shook it a little uncertainly.  It was odd, how quickly one grew used to being avoided, so that it seemed a surprise when decent people were not afraid of one.

"I'm enjoying it," he told Weasley frankly.  "It's an unbelievable chance."

"Yeah," Weasley said a little glumly, "I'm sure."

Draco, impulsively, blurted out, "I don't know why you did this, Weasley—I don't know why either of you did it, or Potter for that matter.  But I wanted to thank you, because even if you didn't do it for me you saved my life."

"I _didn't_ do it for you," Weasley answered grimly, "And I don't want your thanks.  I would have done it for anyone, Malfoy, anyone who hadn't killed my brother.  I would have done it even if they had killed someone else's brother, and why should my brother's life be worth more than that of any other good man who died for his country?  I did it to be true to what he fought for."

"I'm sorry—."  Draco, half way through, choked the words off.  What good would they do?  He wasn't sorry.  Given the opportunity he probably would do it again, and words were fucking useless anyway.  "Fair enough, Weasley," he said instead.  And it was fair—more than fairness; it was a brand of justice he had not expected from the idiots at the Ministry, had not really expected from anyone.  For a moment he was sorry indeed, that he and Weasley could never be friends.  He was coming to admire the man very much.  He probably should have thought of that before he'd killed the brother.

"I guess it's as well that was said," Charlie Weasley went on.  "I think it is best when everyone knows where he stands.  Malfoy, I had Sirius bring you here so that I could tell you my brother Ron wants to bury the hatchet.  Is that acceptable to you?  There are a fair number of wrongs on both sides, and I know he attacked you last."

Draco thought, what if it isn't acceptable?  It was not as if he could fight Ron the Weasel off without magic.  "Of course," he answered, as graciously as possible.  He was not unaware that Charlie was saving him again.

"Come on," Black directed his words to Draco.  "Harry's going to be wondering where you are, and it's almost time for dinner to be served."  He drew Draco gently away, and Draco resisted for a moment, staring at the mantelpiece behind Charlie.  It was covered—almost sagging—beneath the weight of framed pictures.  There must have been thirty of them, at least:  Jamie alone, Jamie and Black, Jamie and Potter.  Narcissa and Black.  Potter and Black.  Potter, Granger, and the Weasel.  There was not one picture present that was more than ten years old; there was not one picture of Draco, of his father, of what had once been Narcissa's life.  It was as final as a slap in the face.  Without a word he followed Black out of the house into the sun.  

He went where he was led; he sat where he was told to sit—at a table of "youngsters."  Potter was on his right and the Weasel and Granger were across the table.  He recognized some of the others from Hogwarts as well, but it was easier not to say anything.  He watched his empty plate (House Elves did not serve those who had born the Dark Mark, of course, and though he could have served himself he found he was not hungry) and for a long time he was unaware of the direction the conversation had taken.  Potter's voice brought him back to himself—Potter saying his name.

"What?" Draco asked a little guiltily.  He knew that Potter would be angry with him for not paying attention—was no doubt already angry with him for slipping away with Black earlier.

Potter's eyes narrowed and Draco readied himself for the explosion.  But Potter's voice was perfectly level, albeit a little cold.  "I said, 'Is it true that incest is an old pureblood tradition'—one that you're personally familiar with, Malfoy?"  So.  Potter had chosen to punish him by publicly humiliating him.

Control.  Draco pushed back his chair and rose slowly to his feet.  Looking down at Potter, he answered as coolly as he could, "I am not the only pureblood at this table, as you well know.  I am also not the best one to answer this—particular—question.  Now, if you'll all excuse me—."

Potter stood so quickly that he knocked his chair over.  Curious eyes turned toward them.  There was going to be a scene, and Draco detested scenes that were not of his own making.  He bent and righted Potter's chair, and said softly, "Sit down, Potter; this is not a fight you want to have with me in public.  Not in front of my mother, who loves you."  Potter sat, and Draco turned away.  He heard someone stand and follow him, but he kept his head high and did not look back.  Rounding the corner of the house, he stopped and dug out a cigarette, and the man behind him stopped too.  Draco lit his cigarette and dropped the match before it burned his fingers—years of living as a Muggle come in handy—and asked, warily, "What do you want from me?"

Ron Weasley looked older than thirty, his face a little too full, his color a little too high.  He looked like a man with a problem, and of course he was.  Draco, raised to believe that abuse of any kind was a weakness, felt a reluctant stirring of pity beneath his disgust.  "A cigarette for a start," Weasley answered, taking it with a hand that shook.  But he lit it easily enough, the flick of his wand very practiced.  His voice was a ruined husk—too many late nights, too many bars closed down, too many cigarettes.  This close Draco could see the small burst blood vessels in his eyes, under his skin.

They stood together, smoking companionably in the shadow of the house.  Weasley smelled faintly of alcohol, the way an addict does—vodka for breakfast—but he seemed comparatively sober.  Purebloods generally had a pretty high tolerance, and Draco wondered if really the Weasel could drink enough to forget anything.  He cleared his throat, trying to think of something friendly to say, and Weasley beat him to it, asking him about Quidditch.

Draco told him, a little too honestly, about the team and its chances, and the Weasel—Ron—laughed and responded.  Suddenly they were talking, really talking, and Draco thought, surprised—we could be friends.  It could be that easy.  Because now they had Potter in common, now they were both disgraced, now they had both disappointed their fathers.  What were a few decades of feuding compared to that?  He caught himself inviting Ron over to watch the Amazons play on Potter's big new Instaview (three thousand channels, nineteen of which showed nothing but Quidditch games broadcast in real time), and added, "If it's all right with Potter, of course."

Weasley glanced at him curiously before responding.  No doubt he wondered what the hell Draco and Potter were doing together, when they had so little liking for one another.  Fair enough.  Draco wondered that himself.  He realized, with a pang, that there was no going back from here.  It was one thing to lie with a man, play the whore; he had done that before and it was unpleasant but afterward one simply walked away.  It was something else again to be seen with Potter in public, to be friends with his friends. It made their liaison into a relationship, gave it a semblance of legitimacy.

"We'd better go back," he said now, stabbing his cigarette out against the wall of his mother's house.  It makes a small black blot on the pale Cotswold stone, and he was secretly glad he had been able to mar her perfect new life, even if only he and Ron the Weasel knew about it.  Walking back silent as old comrades, he thought that it was ironic:  once it had been Ron running when Harry called, and he had despised the man for lowering himself so.  Now it was Draco who did as he was told, and there was no use arguing it was because he had to, because once he would have chosen the Kiss over such degradation.  How far they had all fallen, since that moment when the Morsmorde stained the sky over Dolwydellan one last time.

"I'm playing in the first round of the World Cup on Monday week," he heard himself say, and all at once the absurdity of it caught up with him and he snickered.  "Merlin!  I'm the worst killer in England, and they punish me by making me play Quidditch and sleep with Harry Potter."  Weasley eyed him gravely, probably thinking he had gone mad, and then he must have realized how funny it all was, too.  He and Draco laughed so hard they had to stop and sit on the wall surrounding the garden.  Draco laughed so hard he felt sick, so hard that he had tears in his eyes, and when he blinked them clear Potter was standing over him staring grimly down.

"Malfoy."  Potter's voice was tight, angry.  "It's time to go.  What in the hell were you doing?"

Draco shook his head, unable to explain, and Potter grabbed his wrist and hauled him firmly to his feet.  "Goodbye, Ron," he tossed coldly over his shoulder, and dragged Draco toward the house and the fireplace.  Draco followed, obedient as ever, stumbling and weak from laughter.  He knew quite well that Potter was going to be angry, not only because Draco had walked away from him, but also because he had seemed not to need him.  And yet, he rather thought it had been worth it.

They staggered tiredly into Potter's flat, and ate a rather bad leftover curry, and although it was only eight o'clock, went to bed.  Potter wasn't talking; clearly he was still sulky.  Draco sucked him off and left him to it, unable to keep his eyes open.  He felt drugged, almost, from nerves and sun and despair.  Lying down in his own bed, feeling the cool sheet under his cheek, he thought again of what Potter had said.

Incest was an old purebred tradition, though they had called it inbreeding then, or linebreeding.  It had even been an old Malfoy tradition, once—brothers lying with sisters, fathers with daughters, mothers with sons.  Anything to keep the bloodline pure, and anything to keep it magical, powerful.  It had been illegal in Britain for more than a century, of course, and _not done_ for a long time before that.  Oh, it kept magic in the family, but who wanted heirs with translucent skin and six toes, children who could barely read and write their names?  Draco had had trouble learning to read:  dyslexia, they called it, and his own parents had been distant cousins.  

Abruptly he fell asleep, still thinking of incest, and dreamed not of his mother but of the first man he had ever lain with.  Evan Rosier had been Lucius' age or older, wrinkled and gray and holding a debt Lucius could not pay.  He had been kind, as gentle as possible, and Draco had been terrified.  Somehow they had muddled through but Draco had been left wondering why men thought sex was worth killing for.  In the dream Rosier had his father's face, his father's long, elegant fingers; in the dream he came into Draco so hard, so fast, that Draco felt something tear and bit the older man's shoulder to keep from screaming.  He woke shuddering, sick, and disoriented.  He barely made it to the bathroom in time, before he threw up until he tasted blood.  

When he could bear to raise his head again, Potter was standing in the doorway, his face concerned.  Another small humiliation in a lifetime of small humiliations.  Potter brought him a cup of water, and felt his forehead with the back of his hand.  Draco rinsed his mouth, his throat too raw to swallow despite his desperate thirst.  He could not bear to say thank you because that would mean acknowledging Potter's kindness, but he let himself be led to Potter's bed and they lay down together to sleep for the first time.  He woke to gray dawn breaking, a week before the first game of the World Cup.

Two days later he left with the team for France.  He still felt lightheaded at the speed of it all, and when Potter kissed him goodbye he startled himself by kissing back.  Rennes was a blur of Quidditch, and they stayed at a rather posh hotel in which he had his own room and bath, though it connected to the coach's room and they had taken down the door.  While the children—most of whom were still young enough to find bars and nightclubs enthralling--headed out on the town, Draco spent the evening watching Quidditch tapes.  Feeling virtuous (and well aware that virtue made people hate one) he was preparing to go bed early when someone knocked on the outer door.  He spent a long moment considering possibilities:  could it be Potter?  A lynch mob?  Room service?  Eventually curiosity beat out caution and he answered it.

It turned out to be Elizabeth, one of his teammates.  Overwhelming his surprise, he let her in.  "What can I do for you?" he asked.  It was probably the most he'd ever said to her; she was small and serious and a little mousy and generally ignored him totally.  

Now she answered him, "I want you to—" and her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears.  "I can't do this," she finished, already turning away.  "Jesus Christ!  I can't do this!"  Mystified but polite, Draco handed her a box of tissues, and waited while she blew her nose.  "I need you to make love to me," she said miserably.

Draco felt as if he'd wandered into a bad play.  "What?" he demanded.  "Is this some kind of joke?"

Elizabeth flinched—she seemed even younger than nineteen—but shook her head resolutely.  "I need a baby," she croaked.  "My mother wants me to have your baby.  We've already paid—we won't get it back—you have to do it to me."

So.  It seemed that he was to play the stallion after all.  "Mother said the Malfoy line was too powerful to go to waste.  I have two brothers who were Squibs—they were older, they died in the war."  Elizabeth was sobbing.  Draco drew her to the bed, sat her down, still trying to make sense of it all.  "Mother was so pleased when she saw the ad for you in _Witch Weekly_…"  He made slow, careful love to her, feeling disgusted with himself.  Her small round breasts jiggled when he touched them.  She cried the whole time, and some part of him he would rather not have known about found it exciting.  He had never been so glad to see anyone go.  And only when she had gone did he remember that the coach had been next door the whole time, no doubt supervising the entire thing.  He got up and took another shower, revolted but more relaxed than he had been in months.

The next night there was a cheerful young French witch waiting, whose husband had proved to be impotent.  Then he had a night off, and spent it wondering if this had all been done with Potter's approval.  The night after, it was the Mudblood, the British Minister for Magic, who knocked on Draco's door.  By then he had realized they must be giving him some sort of aphrodisiac to ensure his performance; he was terrified of Granger and he knew he'd never have been able to get it up with her otherwise.  She was so—efficient.  He suspected she had the whole thing on a timetable.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked her during a scheduled breather.

She turned over to face him, her hair curling around her face and softening it.  But her words were as hard as ever.  "I want a baby," she answered bleakly.  "I'm Muggleborn, so I don't have too much more time.  And the man—the man I thought would be the father of my babies—well, he's not in that place.  But I want magic for my baby, and strength, and beauty…"

"You want me, only with a better personality," Draco suggested.

Granger sighed and let one hand slide suggestively down his chest, and Draco recalled his duty and went back to work.  He rather wondered what it was they'd ask him to do next.  He spent his days on the playing field and his nights in the bedroom, and truly, what better way was there to serve his country?

Author's Note:  Thanks so much to everybody who read and reviewed!  As a "bonus" I'm posting short character sketches—stuff that was originally written for this story and wasn't quite a fit.  They are under the title Requiem.  So far I have put up sketches for Pansy Parkinson and Vincent Crabbe, but more to come!  Love, Ishafel. 


	8. Champagne Supernova

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Champagne Supernova

            England won the first round World Cup game, due mostly to luck, but also (Draco thought) due to the Seeker's excellent play.  It was true he'd not expected them to beat Bulgaria, and true that he could not have imagined the Snitch would turn up just behind and to the right of Viktor Krum, and true that if Draco himself had not paused to tighten a loose wristguard he'd not have spotted it.  It was even true that Krum, for all his brilliance, was an old man by Quidditch standards—an old man whose eyesight was not what it once was.  And yet—Draco would have liked a little credit, a few fewer headlines screaming, "Ex-Death Eater has Dark Lord's Own Luck!"  

Everyone he knew had watched the game and all of them had opinions on it.  He knew, abstractly, that this was a good thing:  that it was helping to rebuild a shattered country, to reunite a troubled people.  That night there were riots on the streets in wizarding London, and Potter and all the Aurors were called home to help cover things up.  It was just as well; as soon as he was gone Pansy Parkinson turned up.  The years, or the war, had given her a dignity that almost made her beautiful, but there was a brittle edge to her now.  He decided to get her over with and out before she could yell at him.

When she had gone Draco lay on the bed smoking and watching television, waiting for Potter to come back.  The bed smelled faintly of Pansy and there was a damp spot on the sheets but he couldn't do anything about that.  He was surprised to find himself almost eager for Potter—Potter who at least wanted him for himself.  He sat up at the sound of a key in the lock, and flinched as the light went on in a blinding flash.  Potter loomed over him, looking tired and angry, hair tangled and eyes blazing.

"Why didn't you tell me, Malfoy?" he demanded.  "Did you think I wouldn't stand up for you?  That I would sit quietly by and let them do _that_ to you?"

Draco looked away.  He had thought so; he still wondered if it were not the case.  

"I see," Potter's voice was troubled.  He put out a hand and grabbed Draco roughly by the chin, forcing his head up.  "What kind of monster do you think I am, Malfoy?  That you think I would countenance rape?"  

It was so absurd that Draco could have laughed, if Potter had not been deadly serious.  The other man's lip was trembling, his eyes filled with tears.  But then, Potter was the sort to cry easily.  Just because he was sorry did not mean he was not guilty.  "It didn't matter, Potter," he said finally, aware of the inadequacy of the response.  "I didn't mind."

"Merlin's Beard!"  Potter's face twisted.  "I can smell her on you, and you say it doesn't matter!  Does anything matter to you anymore, Malfoy?  Are you a whore in truth?"

Draco grabbed his wrist and dragged him down onto the bed.  "It makes you excited, doesn't it, Potter?" he asked, knowing it was true.  "It makes you hard just thinking about me with a woman, because what I do with them is what you want me to do to you."  For the first time he kissed Potter and not the other way around.  The man fought for a moment and then submitted with a sob.  Draco ran skillful hands over the body beside him, and rolled over, pinning Potter to the bed.  "You want this—don't try to tell me you don't."  Potter bucked beneath him, but it was a desperate-for-more and not a desperate-to-escape sort of thing.    

He did not move when Draco sat up, freeing him, only watched wide-eyed when Draco upended the suitcase beside the bed to find condoms and lubrication.  He lay quiet and still while Draco undressed them both; quiet and still except that he was trembling with fear or lust or both.  Draco had a hard time going slow, being careful:  he had had virgins before, but none so innocent—or so foolish—as Harry Potter.  It had been a long time since he'd wanted to do this with anyone, since he'd felt in danger of losing control.  Somehow coming into Potter felt like coming home.  He almost took what he wanted and pulled out; it would have been frighteningly easy to make it painful, degrading, to have it all end in tears.  He could have made it so Potter would not want to see him ever again and still walked away without blame.

Some final vestige of decency prevented him, or the memory of himself at thirteen.  He knew what it was to be afraid and disgusted with oneself.  He knew what it was to want something that he should not want.  He almost even knew what guilt felt like.  He did not have enough self-control (or enough charity) to wait for Potter to come.  Finishing, he flopped down beside him, feeling shattered.

Harry Potter turned to Draco Malfoy.  He had not worn glasses in years, of course, but there was something about his expression that recalled an eleven-year old on a broom, determinedly pushing too-large frames up his nose.  "I want you to do that to me again," he said.

Draco could have cried; he nearly did groan.  He had been up since dawn, nervous about the game; he had been through a grueling press conference; in the space of six hours he had shagged Pansy twice and Potter once.  In forty-eight hours he had to play for his life against Nigeria.  He was not even sure he could get it up he was so exhausted.  But Potter's mouth slid downward, warm and slick on bare skin, and almost despite himself Draco felt his body harden.  In the end it was that easy.

Everyone in the world had come to this second game, or so it appeared.  The stands bulged with spectators; there were twice as many on the British side as there had been the first time.  Draco was so tense he thought he was going to throw up, and most of his team seemed almost as bad.  The first game—against an older, more experienced Bulgarian team—that had been a write-off.  No one had expected them to win, only to be good sports about losing.  

The Nigerian team, in contrast, was nearly as young as they were, made up of inexperienced players and a talented but uneven Seeker.  The two teams should be fairly evenly matched.  All those people in the stands were waiting for a British win, and if Draco failed them they were liable to lynch him.  If he were particularly unlucky they would probably destroy the Quidditch pitch, and possibly the city of Rennes, as well.  On his wrists the admantine cuffs seemed to tighten.  No magic; his broom had been charmed to work without it, but he could not leave the field.  There would be no saving himself.

The Nigerian Seeker, grinning, flew beside him.  He was perhaps twenty-one or two, a handsome kid armored in beaded bracelets and protective tattoos, and with an enormous gold ring in his nose.  He kept up a running commentary on the game, and his accent was pure America.  He was supposed to be relatively easy to distract—Draco could only hope.  Three hours in, there had been no sign of the Snitch, and the score was tied.  Draco wasn't sure whether that was good or not.  His team was playing magnificently, but they couldn't last forever; they had to be nearly exhausted and their reserve players were even less prepared to play.  

He was sweating so hard beneath his robes that he could almost feel himself growing dehydrated.  Out of sheer boredom, Draco tried a feint, and the Nigerian, caught off guard, swore.  The crowd, thinking he'd spotted the Snitch, roared; Draco pulled up because didn't have the heart to tease them.  The Nigerian knew the words to every Bob Marley song ever written and was working his way through the repertoire when the Snitch flickered briefly into existence and then disappeared.  Draco was not sure he'd seen it (he'd never been prone to hallucinations but there was a first time for everything) but he knew that the Nigerian hadn't.

Five hours in, he saw it again, this time on the very edge of his vision.  The third time it happened, his team was up by ten and he was ready, rolling smoothly away from the Nigerian and banking.  They were evenly matched but Draco had a start; he was going to win it.  The Snitch drifted slowly over to the stands and hovered just beside the barrier.  A wiser man would have slowed up, come in at an angle; Draco knew that victory was going to come head on if it came at all.  He caught the Snitch, and he might even have managed to pull out, but the Nigerian, unable to stop, hit him from behind and the rail hit him from the front.  Both of them cartwheeled slowly to the ground.

Draco broke his jaw—only to be expected when one plowed face-first into steel at forty miles per hour.  The Nigerian broke his back, and they were both lucky the charm on the field slowed the fall enough so that they didn't break their necks.  At first glance it seemed that Draco had gotten off easily; he was fully healed in a week while the Nigerian would be in therapy for months.  But it was Draco who would never be allowed to play Quidditch again.

He was hazy on what happened immediately after, when the British fans rushed the field.  He remembered that Sirius Black had been there, and Potter and Ron and Charlie Weasley.  He remembered the team medi-wizards clucking over his x-rays, and he remembered waking in the night to find Potter sprawled on the bed beside him, clutching Draco's hand tight as a lifeline.  In the morning, though, he wondered if that last had been a dream; the Potter standing by his head looked less than pleased with him.  In fact, Charlie Weasley and Jamieson looked almost as displeased.  

Draco, blinking up into the morning sun streaming through the blinds, was displeased too.  He felt as though he'd been kicked in the face; he wasn't sure he could even turn his head his neck was so stiff.  Tomorrow morning he was supposed to play either Ireland or Brazil in the semi-final.  Both teams were phenomenal; he'd see Brazil in the qualifying round and he'd been watching tapes of Ireland with Ron.  They probably didn't have a chance, but that didn't mean he wasn't willing to try.  But he could have done with rather more sleep.  

"What's going on?" he asked now, struggling into a sitting position.  Potter, Weasley, and Jamieson moved aside, and a short woman in a severe dark suit stepped out of the shadows.  Draco frantically looked her over and concluded he'd never seen her before in his life.

"Mr. Malfoy," she began.  "I am the chief neuromancer at St. Mungo's hospital in England.  I've been called in as a consult on your case.  Are you familiar with Cruciform Syndrome?"

Draco stared up at her, frantically reevaluating his body and finding that he still felt basically intact.  He could wiggle his fingers and toes, see and hear; he rather thought he could stand up if he had to.  But neuromancy meant brain damage, surely; if they had called a specialist in from England it must be severe.  He did not think he could bear it if he were paralyzed.  "No," he answered, "I've never heard of it.  Is it bad?"

The doctor cracked a smile.  "Well, Mr. Malfoy, it isn't good.  In layman's terms, it is the result of extended exposure to Cruciatus.  We don't know why, but people are affected in one of two ways:  the first, with which I imagine you are familiar, is comparatively rare; it consists of a permanent loss of brain function.  However, recently we have determined that many survivors are also affected.  This is what is typically called Cruciform Syndrome—it results in small, harmless lesions to the brain—visible only on a brain scan.  It manifests as nerve damage, with symptoms including dizziness, low-grade fever, depression, seizures, and nausea.  Under ordinary circumstances, it is easily controllable.  There is no reason, in other words, that you can't live a completely normal life despite this, Mr. Malfoy.  

"That said—there are a few things you will not be able to do.  You should be able to Apparate or Floo, but we recommend that you exercise extreme caution in driving Muggle autos or operating similar machinery.  You will not be eligible for an Auror's licence, and you will not be allowed to play Quidditch professionally.  These regulations come into effect immediately, of course."

 Draco felt as if he'd lost all command of the English language.  "Wait," he demanded.  "What did you just say?"

The coach stepped forward.  "I'm sorry, Malfoy."  Jamieson did look sorry, too, his face red and steadily growing redder.  "But I have to suspend you from the team.  Can't—Don't—Daren't let you play against medical advice.  Insurance, you know.  It would look pretty bad if you fainted in the middle of a game."

Draco said, "I don't understand."  Even in his own ears his voice sounded strained and thin.  "This must be some kind of a joke."  But, looking from face to face he knew it was not.  "You mean that's it?  You're suspending me before the World Cup semi-final, even though you don't have another Seeker, because you're afraid I won't be insured if I play?  That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

It was Charlie Weasley who answered him.  "Look, Malfoy.  I know it's stupid; you know it's stupid.  But it's the way things are done now.  We have to comply with international relations.  Either we drop you or the whole team is disqualified.  I'm sorry; you've played well to date, and losing you is probably not going to help the team.  But at the end of the day, we need the favor of these countries more than we need to win here today."

"So this is political, is all?" Draco asked.  Potter stirred restlessly from his corner but he didn't turn to look at him.  "This would happen no matter who I was?"

"Yeah," Charlie said.  His golden eyes, meeting Draco's, were guileless and clear; either he was a phenomenal liar or he was telling the truth.

"Okay."  Draco forced himself to shrug.  Make it seem casual; never let them see you hurt.  "Do what you have to do."  And he did understand—of course he did.  He was no stranger to hurting people.  What was one man's disappointment, even one man's life, weighed against a country's good?  They must be negotiating with someone; despite himself he felt a prickle of interest.  Who could it be, and why?  

"Thank you, Malfoy," Charlie responded, and the smile he gave Draco was genuine, if tired.  All at once Draco felt a surge of something he would have like to write off as lust, but could not.  Pleasure—a small part of him was _pleased _that Charlie approved of him.  No one had looked at him that way since his father's death, and it should not have mattered to him.  He was a Malfoy; he did what had to be done and damn the consequences.  Whether he was liked or not was immaterial.  He looked away from Charlie and caught Potter's eyes on them.

Potter was glaring, of course; Draco had learned early on that there were few things that did not enrage England's finest.  And instead of being ashamed of himself, Potter smiled back conspiratorially at Draco and cleared his throat.  "Surely we can iron out the details of Mr. Malfoy's…future…later?  I think he looks rather tired."  Within a minute they were all gone but Potter, and no doubt glad of the dismissal.  

            Draco flopped back against his pillows and stared at Potter; Potter propped a shoulder against the wall and stared back.  His ragged dark hair hung in his eyes, he had loosened the knot in his tie so that it sagged around his throat, and his khakis were wrinkled, the knees stained faintly with something that didn't bear too much thinking about.  There was nothing to him—no charisma, no elegance—nothing Draco could not have found anywhere, because there was nothing extraordinary about him.  And yet—there was something appealing about Potter, and when he crawled onto the bed beside Draco (in blatant disrespect of hospital rules, even French hospital rules, which appeared to be fairly liberal) Draco, despite his exhaustion, despite the fact that he could not turn his head to the left or open his mouth for Potter's; Draco felt his body respond to Potter's very presence.  

Embarrassingly, that was how Granger caught them when she came in without knocking.  Well; it would have been embarrassing no matter who had caught them:  Harry atop Draco, bodies pressed so tight together that no hand could fit between them, mouths hard and not too careful.  It was made significantly worse by the histories they shared, the pasts twined like lovers, the remembrance of Granger's pale taut form writhing beneath him only days before.  Harry rolled away with a choking sound that might have been a moan.  Draco, resolutely unashamed, smirked up at the Mudblood; he was what he was, and why deny it?  But could it be she was pleased, seeing them so?  Perhaps she had found it arousing.  

After a moment he raised tentative fingers to his mouth.  Blood, and no wonder the Mudblood was smiling.  Potter had marked him like a dog with a bitch in heat.  Oh, they must have looked a pair of proper fools, true enough; but they were not doing anything wrong.  Beside him, though, Potter was shaking and sick.  Draco wondered how it was he could be falling in love with someone he did not even like.  Blaise had been wild and passionate and brave and cool and brilliant; Potter was a fool and a coward and mean besides.  When it was clear Potter was not capable of speech, he said coldly, "You might have knocked.  Suppose I had been dressing?"

Credit where credit was due; Granger was far less discomfited than most women would have been.  He almost forgot himself enough to laugh with her when she answered, "Why would I care?  I've seen every bit of you anyway."

            Instead he grimaced and snapped, "Don't remind me!" and was rewarded by a brief flicker of hurt in her eyes before she returned to business.  Potter, when he spared him a glance, was red-faced and miserable; Draco thought, but did not say, that the two of them had everything in common but innocence and Potter was fast losing _that._

            The Mudblood threw a pale beige file folder into Draco's lap.  "Here."  Her voice was sharp enough to cut, suddenly; he thought she was remembering who and what they all were to one another.  

            "What is it?"  Draco was already flipping through the pages.  "Is this a test?  Some kind of personality thing?"

            "Close," Granger replied, smirking a bit herself.  "It's the A.C.M.E.  I need you to take it."

            "Acme?" Draco questioned, pausing to admire a spectacularly complicated set of pie graphs.  "This looks impossible.  Are those essay questions at the end?"

            Granger made a stop-taking-the-piss-you-moron-this-is-for-your-own-bloody-good-face at him.  "Yes," she answered patiently.  "It's A.C.M.E.—Appalling Career Measurement Exam—pay attention, Malfoy!  It tallies up your qualifications and skills and suggests job options.  The Ministry is required to rehabilitate you—."  Potter made a sort of snorting noise and Granger paused to glare.  "To make you into a productive member of society," she finished smoothly.  "Now as you won't be allowed magic, it will probably have to be as a member of Muggle society.  It's like the Sorting Hat.  It directs you to what you want."  She threw Draco a chewed looking ballpoint pen (now that was appalling) and raised an eyebrow at Potter.  "Harry and I will leave you to it—the sooner you finish the sooner you can start your new career.

            Draco waited till they'd gone to make obscene gestures at the door.  The exam would take him hours, he read so slowly, and why did he have to do it in the hospital room anyway?  The pain in his jaw, temporarily dulled by lust, came back in full and throbbing force.  He got up and moved slowly and carefully to the door, being sure not to bend anything unnecessary.  There was no guard in the hallway; he was alone as he'd not been since coming back to England.  He was hardly going to make a run for it, not with cuffs on his wrists that prevented him doing magic and could only be unlocked by an Auror.  Discarded on the sticky tile floor he found a copy of the latest _Le Monde_.  He had very little French, but he recognized his own name; they had spelled in the old Norman way:  Malfoi—bad faith.  He left the paper where it was and walked slowly back to his room.

            In three hours Draco had managed to do all of the math sections on Granger's little test, and most of the personal ones, and two of the four essays, and still he was less than half done.  The whole thing had succeeded in making him feel thoroughly stupid, in a way he thought he had left behind forever; Granger was sure to comment on his creative spelling but without a CorrectQuill there was nothing that could be done.  When Potter and Granger came in (again without knocking, but it was true they had both seen everything there was to see) he flung the folder back at her, thoroughly disgusted with the whole situation.

            "Finished?" Granger tilted an eyebrow in polite surprise.

            "Hardly."  Draco was aware that he sounded sulky but unable to help himself.  "I've had enough.  Go ahead, rip me to pieces."

            Granger, flipping through the pages, looked up at him again.  "You've done the maths, anyway; I guess that that's a start.  But, Malfoy—you were second in our class at Hogwarts; I didn't think that this would give you any trouble."

            "I had magic then, Granger," he snapped.  "I was light years ahead of the rest of you and it still took everything I had to stay even."  He listened to himself in surprise; he had thought that these were old hurts, long healed, but now they felt as raw as ever.  "I'm not—I can't—it didn't come easy for me.  It never has.  You don't understand.  You never had to work for any of it, and Potter never bothered."  He had said too much and he knew it.

            Realization dawned in Granger's eyes.  She opened and closed her mouth several times, clearly at a loss.  He was about to interrupt her when she finally began.  "Malfoy—it's nothing to be ashamed of.  Everyone learns differently.  You were a thousand times better than me at Potions, remember?  I always hated you for that."

            "You don't understand," Draco said again, turning away.  "It's okay for you, maybe; no one ever expected anything of you anyway.  Just by showing up you've beaten the odds.  Why do you think Dumbledore adores you so?  Because the average Muggle-born, Muggle-raised type never accomplishes anything.  At best, they generally learn not to do any harm to themselves.  Maybe one a generation goes on to be anything else; and there you were—a mind like an admantine trap.  You're the poster child for his diversity movement; there have been two really successful Muggleborns in the last two centuries and the other one is Albus Dumbledore.  I, on the other hand, am a Malfoy born and bred.  For me to be _different_—don't you get it?  In our world, different is wrong."

            Granger moved closer, put a hand up as if to touch his cheek, as if he were someone else.  But Draco had already raised his head, and over her shoulder he caught Potter's disinterested green eyes.  "I'm sorry," he said with an effort.  They were difficult words to say, for one with his training; as her world and Potter's was a difficult place to live.  "Can't you just grade me and be done with it?"

            Granger gave him a small, sympathetic smile.  "Sure, Malfoy.  Give me a minute.  I think there should be enough done here."  She laid the papers out in a grid at their feet and flicked her wand at them.  "_Correlio!_"  The sheets sorted themselves into order, scuttling like tiny crabs across the tile.  On the blank page at the top, Draco's name formed slowly, followed by two columns of bulleted points, almost equal in length, and a third list consisting of three short sentences.  

            Draco blinked as she bent to take up the paper.  It had been years since he'd seen magic used casually, and with admantine bracketing his wrists he had not even felt the spell being worked.  Was it better to be a Squib among wizards, and always remember what he had lost, or to be a wizard among Muggles and forget everything he had ever been?

            "Here we are, then," Granger announced, sliding on reading glasses.  She held the paper in her right hand, and unconsciously her left crept to down to cradle her stomach:  a poignant reminder of the new life they two had created, that she could not even be sure yet she bore.  He wondered if he was required to take one of the suggested jobs.  Suppose they recommended he be a farmer?  Or worse, a priest?  Granger read, "Soldier.  Well, that one makes sense, but it's right out.  Sorry, Malfoy.  Engineer.  That one is possible, but it takes years of school, I think.  Mark it maybe.  Teacher.  Yes, but again, that needs training.  Arithmancist.  Harry, that's it!  You know Dumbledore's been looking for an Arithmancy professor!"

            "He can hardly be a professor without a wand, Herm, even if you could persuade Dumbledore and the board to have him," Potter pointed out.  "Besides, what if he don't want to be a professor?"

            "Oh, honestly, Harry," Granger said, her voice businesslike.  "Arithmancy's all theory anyway so there's no need for a wand, and you know I'm Chairwizard of the Board, and after all they let Snape teach there.  And really, who wouldn't want to teach at Hogwarts?"

            "Me, for starters," Potter answered bluntly.  "Maybe Malfoy, too."

            "Well?" Granger demanded, turning on Draco.  Her eyes were bright and fierce as a fury's; Draco was unaccountably reminded of the time in fourth year when she had slapped him.  

Meekly, he gave in:  "All right.  If you can persuade Dumbledore, I'll do it."  Surely that was safe; chair or no she'd never force Dumbledore to have him.  Yet he was filled with unaccountable misgivings.  Perhaps this was why Dumbledore had wanted him put to death.

"Now," Granger continued briskly, "what should we do with you over the summer?  I think a nice job in a shop would just suit you, Malfoy, and you'd have plenty of time at night to prepare lesson materials.  Don't you think—."

"No," Draco snarled, unable to mask his outrage.  "I don't think.  I'm a Malfoy, Granger, I can't work in a shop!  Besides, I don't want to."

Granger stared at him as if he'd grown a second head.  "Don't want to work in a shop?"  Behind her Potter made throat-slitting hand signals at Draco, who ignored him and watched, fascinated, as Granger's eyes widened and her nostrils flared.  "Draco Malfoy!  Doesn't want to work in a shop—too good to work in a shop!  I was just beginning to think you were a human being, Malfoy!  I was just starting to feel the tiniest bit sorry for you.  What is it that you have against shopkeepers, Malfoy?"

Draco swallowed.  "Nothing.  It's a, uh, that is—."

"It's an honorable trade," Potter interjected swiftly.  "He'll do it, 'Mione.  And he won't complain either, right, Malfoy?"

"Right," Draco confirmed.  Merlin, did the girl have no sense of humor at all?  No wonder she did so well as Minister.  He still didn't want to work in a shop, though.  "I'm tired," he said flatly and was surprised to realize just how true it was.  Suddenly he was so exhausted it hurt to breathe.  "Are we finished here?"  

Granger nodded and turned to go; Draco sank down onto the bed with a sigh.  But just as she opened the door, he found words again.  "Thank you, Granger—for everything."  The smile she gave him almost made her beautiful, and for the first time he wondered what their child would look like.  Would he be Arithmancy Master at Hogwarts in eleven years, teaching his own children?

Iceland won the World Cup; England lost the very next game to Brazil, and the Aurors were once again called out.  Draco was aware that returning to Potter's apartment was like coming home.  He would miss it, and maybe even Potter, when he left for Hogwarts.  Because, after all, Granger had somehow managed to ram him down Dumbledore's throat.  They had found him work in a smallish New Age bookstore ten miles outside of Hogsmeade.  It was owned by a fat middle-aged man, the brother of a Mudblood male they'd apparently been at school with.  It wasn't bad, mostly because it got very little business and he and the other kids working there were able to spend most of their time smoking marijuana in an alley at the back.

He was surprised, at first, that these Muggles let him into their world so easily—or rather, let Michael Drake in.  All of them were at least ten years his junior; they should have balked at sharing drugs and parties and small hopeless magics with a stranger and an old man.  Yet they seemed to think he was one of them, more or less from the start, and in the mirror he saw that the fine lines and faint scars on his face were visible only in direct sunlight.  Generations of superior genes and superior health care made him seem much younger than he was—he passed for a university student. 

In July, Harry turned thirty and Draco thought, we're getting old.  At thirty his father had been president of an enormous multi-national corporation, and his mother had been Head of Research for the Ministry and the Weasleys had had fourteen children and Harry's parents had been dead.  And what was he?  He was nothing, no one; a man who had once killed something he did not really understand.  He was the newest, and most inept, and certainly most terrified, member of the Hogwarts staff.


	9. Coventry

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Coventry

            They threw him a farewell party the night before he left for Hogwarts, and Draco, whose birthdays had passed unremarked for ten years, was floored and flattered and a little uncomfortable.  He had not grown used to being liked for himself, or despite himself; he did not really understand what it was they wanted from him—or if they wanted anything.  Altruism and friendship do not mix, not in his experience, and the whole thing left rather a sour taste in his mouth.  

At the end of the night there were gifts—not the kind of gifts given by his father's friends, which were designed to reflect the giver's wealth, power, and generosity—but small things picked especially for him.  He had never been given anything before, by anyone outside of his family; there was, after all, nothing he could possibly want that he could not afford to buy for himself.  Malfoys were firmly at the top of the food chain—or had been once.  Implying otherwise was, of course, an insult, but he was aware that they meant to be kind and so he tore open the brightly wrapped presents with (he hoped) every indication of pleasure.

Granger's package contained a copy of _Hogwarts, A Revised History_, which for some reason made the others, particularly Ron and Potter, laugh hysterically.  She frowned severely at them, but there was a new softness to her that took away the edge from her expression.  Motherhood might suit her after all.  Potter gave him a shirt that read, "Seekers Always Mark Their Man" and Ron gave him a lumpy maroon sweater with a lopsided "D" embroidered on it.  Draco, aware of the troubled glance Potter shot Charlie Weasley, thanked him as solemnly as possible.

In the morning, Draco woke early, and went into the bathroom to shower and dress, leaving Harry to sleep heavily, and if truth be told, rather drunkenly.  His eyes stared back at him from the mirror, wide and pale and anxious.  He put on his new robes and smoothed his hair, feeling like a child playing dress up.  The black of a Hogwarts master suited him, rather more than it had suited Snape, say, or McGonagall.

            Snape, of course, was another worry entirely—a far different animal than the others.  Dumbledore might have him killed (and in fact probably would if he could do so and avoid blame) but Snape would break Draco if he wished to.  Snape was fond of the small cruelties only Slytherins knew were not incidental.  Snape had not trusted him enough to reveal that he was a spy; it was unlikely Draco's subsequent betrayal would have further endeared him to the man.

            Draco frowned at his reflection, daring the mirror to make some smart remark.  He and Snape had been close, once; they had been close as any brothers, as even the Weasleys.  A part of him wanted that closeness back, but another more rational portion of his brain had accepted that if he were to survive he would be far safer without such connections.  He would be lucky if Potter didn't kill him, or drive him mad; he had a feeling he was hovering on the edge of the second already.  He did not need to go looking for complications.

            It was hard to pretend to be normal, when since the World Cup he had been treading water and was now beginning to sink.  For Granger, Ron, even Potter, this was all a bit of a lark:  pack the Death Eater off to Hogwarts, and let him make an ass of himself, why not?  But it was Draco whose body had betrayed him, Draco whose life this was.  It was Draco who leaned, shaking and sick, against the sink, aware that whatever it was that awaited him at Hogwarts he would have to face it alone. 

            In the bedroom Potter waited for Draco, snoring slightly.  His face was tired and a little drawn, and there were lines around his mouth and eyes, threads of gray in his dark hair.  His body was a Quidditch player's, still, but unlike Draco he had put on weight.  It was not enough to diminish his appeal, not even enough to be visible unless he lay unclothed as he did now, all defenses down.  Draco, looking down at him, felt half glad and half guilty to be leaving him.  Suddenly cold, he lay down beside Potter and pulled the blankets up, ignoring the fact that his robes were sure to be rumpled.  Potter rolled toward him, a heavy, solid ball of warmth, and they curled round one another almost without meaning to.

            Draco had begun to doze when the doorbell went—one of the few Muggle inventions Potter had adopted, and it constantly took Draco by surprise.  He and Potter scrambled up, Draco frantically trying to straighten the crushed fabric of his robes (normally they were made from polyester but he'd had his done in linen, and changed the cut ever so slightly as well) and Potter fishing an old stained t-shirt from the floor and cramming it over his head.  While Potter got the door Draco stopped in the bathroom to check his appearance and gather his nerve.  He had not seen Dumbledore since his trial, and he was displeased to notice that there was a red sleep mark on his cheek.  

            Gathering his bags and a last armload of books, he marched toward the door, keeping his back straight and his chin up.  Potter and Dumbledore were standing in the doorway, waiting; wise of Dumbledore not to come in, when every surface in the living room overflowed with empty bottles and spilled ashtrays.  Draco wondered, a little sadly, who would clean it up, when he was gone.  Would Potter bother?  Would he replace Draco with a younger, less handsome boy?  Or would he just go on as he had done, not even noticing the filth until someday…  "I'm ready," he said, more harshly than he had meant to do.  

            Potter glanced at him quickly, and than at the floor.  Dumbledore smiled, showing teeth like an ancient crocodile's.  "Well, Mr. Malfoy.  My carriage awaits."

            Draco turned to Potter and searched for words.  In the end, inspiration failed to appear and he could say only, "Goodbye, Potter.  Thank you for everything."

            Potter's mouth opened and closed several times.  At last he found his voice.  "Malfoy, wait."  Draco, who had not moved, raised an eyebrow.  Potter whispered, "Malfoy, I'll miss you.  I think—I think I might love you.  If you want—if you want to come here sometime on the weekend, maybe, I'd like that."

            Best not to give hope where there could be none; it was best to walk away now.  Yet, Draco, to his amazement, heard himself answer, "Yes, I'd like that too."  Numbly, he followed Dumbledore out to the great coach.  There was a lurch as the centaurs stepped into the harness, and Draco caught himself against the door.  When he turned to look, Potter was gone.  He and Dumbledore sat in silence, side by side, all the way to Hogwarts.  Once Draco lit a cigarette but Dumbledore put it out with a wordless flick of his wand.

            He had always rather fancied Snape's cozy quarters in the Slytherin dungeon; he had enjoyed living there with Blaise and, perhaps unconsciously, had expected to be assigned something similar.  Instead he had been given a room high up in one of the emptier towers.  It was large and almost empty, furnished entirely with castoffs from the dorms.  The view was magnificent, but the wind blew through cracks in the stone and the fireplace smoked.  The bath was enormous, all cracked and waterstained white marble, and carved gargoyles lurked high up in each corner.  It was not a particularly comfortable room, and Draco thought he'd caught Dumbledore smirking as he handed over the key.  

            Still, it was private, and clean enough.  On the desk lay lists of the students in each year that would be taking his class.  Flipping through it, Draco was surprised at how many names he recognized.  There was a Weasley in third year—perhaps Charlie's?  Or a twin's?  There was a Parkinson—that would be Pansy's youngest half-brother.  A Goyle, a cousin of Greg's; and his mother's goddaughter in seventh year.  And, in fifth year, one of the names he had been dreading.  Ista Flint, Marc's daughter, whose mother Draco could remember killing.  She had been so young, Fleur, and so beautiful, her belly swollen with her second child.  They had all been so young then.  He threw the papers down on the desk and went to have a bath.

            Arriving fashionably late for dinner, Draco fell into his seat and looked around.  He knew perhaps half of those seated at the high table with him—Snape, McGonagall, Pomfrey, Trelawney, Flitwick, Filch and Dumbledore.  Summoning his most charming smile, he prepared to meet them, but familiar and unfamiliar, they all stared past him coldly and silently.  

Draco turned his focus on the students, ignoring the Sorting (Thank Merlin, he would not have to teach first or second years).  They were an unprepossessing bunch, from the red haired and squinting Perry Weasley to the scowling Darien Parkinson.  He could not tell which of the Slytherins was Marcus Flint's daughter and in the end he turned his attention to his plate.  He had discovered that although House Elves would not serve him, he could, if he were quick and a bit grabby, take the bowls of steaming food directly from others' hands.  It was not an ideal solution but it was the best he had been able to come up with.  Now he managed to get mashed potatoes from McGonagall and carrots of some sort from Dumbledore, and suddenly ravenous, he began to eat.  

Just as Draco was reaching for a roll (and yes, he had been taught better manners, but in a situation like this there was nothing to do but lean and hope for the best) Dumbledore stood and began to introduce the teaching staff.  Hastily, Draco snatched his hand back and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed.  When his own turn came he stood slowly, very aware of all the eyes on him.  He was a Malfoy, and bred to the spotlight, but he had been a fugitive for a third of his life.  He had almost forgotten what it was like to be stared at so intently.  And, of course no one clapped for him, not even the handful of ragged Slytherins who had cheered Snape.  Well, fair enough—one way or another he had betrayed all of their families when they were very young, and in more recent memory been responsible for losing the damned World Cup.  Popularity would have been rather a lot to ask for, and, like Snape, he required only that they respect him.

Draco's first class, fourth-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, dragged on interminably.  His carefully planned lesson neither caught, nor held, their attention.  And the worst of it was, he suspected he was rather a good teacher.  Certainly he was a thousand times better than Vector, his own teacher, had been.  Yet none of his students responded to even the simplest of his questions.  Could they be so far behind, or had judicious inbreeding caught up with the wizarding world?  At the end of the period he dismissed them and sent them on their way, and sat down rather hard at his desk.  

He was dismayed to find himself shivering uncontrollably.  Pacing the classroom, Draco folded his arms over his chest and clenched his jaw so hard it ached.  One of the little bastards must have hexed him on the way out.  He would almost certainly have done something even worse, given such a target at such an age; now if he had not been the target he might have found it funny.  Even erasing the blackboard is difficult, when one must do it the Muggle way, and when one's teeth are chattering.  The knock at the door startled Draco so much he dropped the eraser anyway.  Biting back a curse, he opened the door.

Severus Snape, lounging elegantly against the wall, straightened hurriedly.  "Really, Malfoy," he drawled, "must you always be so…sudden?"

Draco raised an eyebrow.  "Snape.  Must you always be so obvious?"  The other man laughed, caught himself, and turned his expression to a sneer.  He followed Draco into the room and moved distractedly about, picking things up and setting them down in slightly different places.  Draco, still shivering with cold, cupped his hands to his mouth and blew half-heartedly into them.

Severus peered curiously at him, eyes piercing beneath the thick black fringe.  The last ten years had been good to him, surprisingly good given his mixed blood.  There were faint traces of gray in his hair, a few more lines on his face, but he could have been thirty-five and not fifty.  He had put on weight, enough to make his presence solid; he was an imposing figure—rather like a darker, blurred version of their father at that age.  "Surely you're not cold, Malfoy," he asked now.  "Not even you could be so thin-blooded as that.  Which one of them was it that did it?"

"I don't know," Draco answered, a little sadly.  "But I'll find out, and have its head."

Severus laughed.  "Should I take the spell off or let you suffer, I wonder?"  

"I'm not such a martyr as that; you'd best take it off before my next class comes in, at any rate.

He had gone back to prowling restlessly, but suddenly the relentless burning cold was gone as if it had never been.  Draco lit a cigarette and was gratified when Severus spun as though the click of the lighter had been a gunshot.  One way or another they were all still bleeding; Snape simply hid his wounds better than most.

"Filthy habit, Malfoy."  But Severus came closer, drawn like a moth to a flame.  He put out a hand and Draco took it: 

pale thin fingers, and a palm ridged with callus; but for the potion stains it might have his own hand.  "I've missed you, you greasy git," he whispered.

            Severus—no, call him Snape—drew back as if he'd smelled Death herself.  "Malfoy.  We can't—I dare not—." 

"You don't want to be associated with me."  Draco swallowed the absurd lump in his throat.  "One Death Eater has a certain rarity value, but two together mean a plot."

"There is more at stake than you realize," Snape said softly.  His eyes were soft, direct; they were the eyes of a man who could betray you to your death with a smile and never let on how much he regretted it.  "There is trouble brewing, Malfoy, a war such as we have never seen."

Draco turned away.  "I knew there was something wrong.  I knew!  It was like it drew me back.  It will be very bad, then?"

"May."  But Snape's voice was too even, too controlled; he lied too well to be believable.  "There _may_ be such a war coming, but there is still time to turn the course of our world.  Time, for a man they believe they can trust, to influence those who must be influenced.  This is not Voldemort's little reign of terror, nor Grindelwald's small rebellion.  Next to what I fear is coming all our history of death and disasters will be only a pleasant memory.

"Fair enough," Draco said, and his own words were calm but the butt of his cigarette burned his fingers and still he held it.

"Malfoy."  Snape shook back the sleeve of his robe to reveal his wrist, unmarked but for the scar Draco himself had put there.  No trace of the Dark Mark he had born for twenty years and more; when he had lost the Dark Lord's favor it had disappeared without a trace.  "Five years, at the outside.  More likely it will be two."  Draco, without meaning to, ran his thumb over the matching scar on his own wrist.  Snape continued, "I have never forgotten what you did for me.  No one has ever been willing to die for me but you."

"It was nothing," Draco protested, but he let the cigarette drop, and raised his burnt fingers to his mouth.  Snape crossed the distance between them with a stride, pulled Draco's hand down and away from his face, and pressed his lips to Draco's pulse.  Draco closed his eyes and when he opened them Snape was gone as if he had never been.

So much for adolescent lust—the one thing Draco had wanted more than life itself at fifteen was still as much out of reach as ever.  But life went on; where once there had been Blaise now there was Harry Potter.  And was this what unrequited love tasted like?  How had Blaise stood it?  How did Harry stand it?  He brought his wrist to his mouth, smelling Severus on himself.  Once it would have seemed like a miracle to him, and now it was nothing, was empty.  That was something else Potter had ruined for him; now sex smelled of cigarettes and sweat and cheap beer and not of incense and Obsession, or exotic potions ingredients and blood.  

In his next class there was Ista Flint, and when Draco took roll he watched for her.  Fleur had been beautiful, with a cruel narrow face heart-shaped as cat's; Marc had been square and hard and brutally handsome.  Ista was a lumpy, plain, fat child, dark and sour and clearly desperately unhappy.  Draco, young enough to remember how hard it was to be fifteen or sixteen, could not even imagine how terrible her life must be.  The worst of it was that she was bright, very very bright, and powerful.  In ten years she might be passable though she would never be pretty.  But he could see already that she would not last that long; she was too fragile, too easy to break.  If Hogwarts did not destroy her the real world would.  He wondered looking at her if this was what his father had seen in Tom Riddle sixty years before—this same potential for self-destruction.  And how was it that no one else had seen it?  Oh, the girl was a Slytherin, but that did not justify looking through her as if she were glass.

At the first faculty meeting of the year, he brought it up.  What _does_ one do if one of one's students seems a potential suicide?  (Well, he phrased it a bit more tactfully than that; he was a Malfoy after all.)  The meeting went on as if he had not spoken; the other teachers simply raised their voices, spoke over him.  They were not speaking to him; effective but so childish he could not stop himself from laughing, though he covered it by coughing hard and was very nearly sick.  They practically strained their necks not looking at him.

The chubby, slack-jawed cherub would not let him into his rooms until he showed it his arm, still clear of a Dark Mark.  Draco found this funny the first few times it happened, but when the guardians of all the doors began to do the same, he quickly lost patience.  None of his fellow staff members acknowledged his existence; the House Elves hated him and the artwork made fun of him.  The single Quidditch match he had refereed had ended in disaster when both teams refused to allow him to rule in their favor.

And then, Potter wrote him letters—sometimes three or four a week, despite the fact that Draco had yet to write him back.  They were interesting letters, too, though they were not always nice.  They were love letters, written by a man who did not really know what love was; they began, invariably:  _Malfoy—_.  

And generally continued, in Potter's blind man's scrawl, skirting the edges of literacy and legality.  _Malfoy—I want nothing more than to fuck you against the wall, white skin against dark wood.  I want nothing more than to make you bleed._  Or, _Malfoy—I wish you were dead.  I wish I could tear your heart out and eat it.  I wish you were part of me.  I wish you were here._  No one had sent Draco letters since his father died.  No one had ever sent him letters like these; they were barely legible, written on scraps of paper torn from case files, on napkins, on letterhead from cheap Muggle hotels.  They were sealed with gum, shoved in stained envelopes hastily licked shut, rolled and tied with strands of hair.  

Draco wondered, at first, if Potter knew that Dumbledore opened all of his mail.  After awhile he decided it didn't matter; if Dumbledore wanted to know what it was Potter thought, more power to him.  Sometimes he caught the old man eying him speculatively; perhaps he was trying to picture the things Potter wrote about.  Perhaps he wanted to know how Draco would look, chained to a bed, how he would feel in the dark.  It didn't matter.  Let him dream.  Draco was used to being watched.

On the weekends, of course, there was Potter himself.  He was still a lousy fuck, still too rough, too fast, too inconsiderate for Draco's taste.  Yet Draco found himself more and more willing to be hurt, taken, scorned.  And, more rarely, there was Potter lying still and quiet beneath him, too ashamed to acknowledge that this aroused him.  Those were the times Draco was most at peace, buried in Potter's warm soft body.  Heartbreakingly, Potter had even tried to clean, the first time Draco came to visit.

During the long September and October days, when he found himself sympathizing with his mother, remembering her disgust at his slowness, Draco lost himself in Ista Flint's hard black gaze.  She was the smartest of his students, by far; she was one of the few who paid attention when he taught.  The others were fools beside her, or were fools at any rate.  She was unpopular, unlikable; she was falling apart before him and no one listened when he said so.  On Halloween he caught her crying in the corridor, her face swollen and blotchy, and she ran from him.  Something in him recognized, then, that there would be no saving her.  The deathwatch had begun.

Early in December, when the other children began to panic about exams or O.W.L.S. or N.E.W.T.S., when they came crawling to Draco begging for forgiveness and tutoring and extra credit, Ista Flint broke.  He was not there when it happened; he did not see how it began.  When he came into the Great Hall in the middle of the afternoon, it was deserted except for a handful of students, huddled together at one end.  Deserted, except for them, and Ista, and the crumpled body at her feet.  He felt as much as heard the word she hissed.  _Crucio._  And whoever it was before her screamed in agony.  Oh, the spell had not worked; there were guards put up at Hogwarts, that prevented the Unforgivables from taking effect.  But merely the attempt would be enough to damn her.

Draco had never been particularly courageous, either physically or morally.  He avoided pain at any cost, and he generally stayed well clear of danger if possible.  He would have liked to stay well clear of this.  It was crazy, he thought, there was nothing he could do.  No wand, no magic, no sword, even.  Against a girl who was poorly trained and clearly desperate and extremely strong.  One of the girls screamed, a high, half-hearted sobbing scream that made him think of Pansy and without meaning to he took a step forward.  

Ista turned to face him and he felt her focus shift.  All at once he was not her Arithmancy professor but the man who had murdered her mother.  Her rage had a presence all its own.  Draco stared her down as one stared down a mad dog, a charging bull.  He dared not blink, dared not even breathe; she could destroy him in a heartbeat if she chose to.  

She did not, it seemed, choose to:  after a moment she looked away, and the moment passed.  "Ista," Draco said as gently as he could.  "Run."

When she was gone he turned his attention to the children shivering on the floor.  The broken body of a handsome boy he nearly recognized—but there was nothing he could for that one.  "Are you all right?" he asked, and one by one they struggled to their feet, pressing as close to him as they could.  "It'll be okay," he heard himself promise, and all the while he was remembering other children, for whom it had not been okay.  He could not say that to them:  that they were lucky to have survived, that they were better off without their innocence, that everyone had to grow up sometime.  Instead he said, "I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry," as he did his best to wipe up their tears.

When the wounded had been patched up and order restored officials from the Ministry came to meet with Dumbledore.  Draco was summoned but forced to wait in the corridor.  Potter, passing, gave him a tight, unhappy smile, and Black touched his shoulder briefly.  After they had gone by Draco let himself slide down until he was sitting against the wall.  He could feel himself beginning to shake, and made no effort to quell his terror.  What had he done?  How could he have let her go?  And yet, what else could he have done?

Ten years ago the war had been about survival.  He had not given much thought to what it was he had done; he could not, after all, have done otherwise.  He had killed Ista's mother while Potter killed her father.  He had helped to set her on this path.  And what was Ista, but another Voldemort, another unwanted orphan unwelcomed by their world.  What chance had she had?  What chance did anyone have?

Sirius Black opened the door to Dumbledore's office.  "Draco, could you come in please?" he asked.

Draco, startled, scrambled to his feet.  "I'm coming."  Black's face was unreadable; no telling what lay in store.  There was nothing for it, he would have to face the music.  He remembered Dumbledore saying "I only know that the world will be better without you."  What would they do to him, now that he had let Ista Flint loose on the world?


	10. Joan of Arc

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables

Joan of Arc  
  


It was deep into his fiery heart   
he took the dust of Joan of Arc,   
and then she clearly understood   
if he was fire, oh then she must be wood.   
I saw her wince, I saw her cry,   
I saw the glory in her eye.   
Myself I long for love and light,   
but must it come so cruel, must it burn so bright?

From "Joan of Arc" by Leonard Cohen

            It seemed they only wanted to talk to him, or perhaps to stare at him until he said something interesting.  Draco stared back; he was no stranger to such tactics, after all.  He had thought they were only waiting to attack him; it turned out they were waiting for Granger.  She blew in twenty minutes later, trailing assistants and packages, her body enormous with pregnancy under the folds of her Minister's robe.  Of course, she would be what?  Six months along, now.  Too far gone to Apparate.  He saw Dumbledore's face whiten, Potter's mouth open and close.  Could it be they had not known?  Draco felt a fierce surge of pride, as if he had had some say in this baby's conception.  

            And then Black, as head of the College of Aurors, was calling the meeting to order, and Draco remembered, appalled, just why it was they were meeting.  Under the table, Potter took his hand and squeezed it, hard, and Draco did not let himself pull away.  This time—this once—he would allow himself this small gesture, now when he was once more on the brink of losing everything.  His whole life was a series of almost disasters, and how dare he be such a drama queen?  His was not the life at stake here today.  But he did not draw his hand away.

            "Professor Malfoy," Black said gravely, "I think that we are all in agreement that, what happened today, while tragic, cannot and should not be made public.  Ista Flint's breakdown is not something that anyone could have foreseen; rather it is a result of the girl's particular and peculiar background and circumstances.  While it will, of course, necessitate a re-evaluation of the support system here at Hogwarts, it is not the intention of either the Hogwarts Board of Governors or the Ministry to place blame.  We are very sure that all members of the Hogwarts staff acted with the best of intentions where Ista is concerned.

            The fact remains, however, that while we fully believe that we can prevent such incidents in the future, we still must deal with this.  We must consider what is best for Ista.  We are confident that at this time Ista remains in England.  However—."  And here, Black's voice faltered, here he stopped, to rub his forehead with his hands.  Draco knew just how he felt.  It was never easy to sign a death warrant.  "However," Black went on, "she must be brought to justice.  The penalty for attempted use of an Unforgivable is now not less than fifteen years in Azkaban.  Ista's youth will, unfortunately, not mitigate her offense."

            Draco started to say something and changed his mind.  He was not, after all, sure there was anything that could have saved Ista, and he knew that no one wanted to hear him talk.  Snape and Dumbledore, side by side, looked devastated, and even McGonagall seemed to have lost her starch.  And could it be that after all these years he was learning tact?  Potter gave his hand another squeeze.  

            "The question, now, becomes who to send after Ista," Black continued.  "We dare not send a regular unit of Aurors; we dare not risk the publicity that might result.  As most of you know, the Unspeakables were disbanded three years ago.  We find ourselves at an impasse.  What is needed is a single highly trained wizard, someone unaffiliated with the Aurors, and preferably familiar with Ista."  He paused expectantly. 

            Draco took advantage of the moment to dig through the pockets of his robes for cigarettes and a lighter.  He was just lifting one to his lips when he caught Granger's disapproving eye.  She seemed to be mouthing something at him.  After a moment's thought, Draco interpreted it as "Bad for the baby." And put the cigarette down unlit.  That was when he realized everyone else in the room was looking at him, too.  Caught off guard, his poise having deserted him, he demanded, "What?"

            "Professor," Snape's voice was cold as ever but his eyes were apologetic and kind.  "What Mr. Black means is that he would like you to volunteer."

            Draco, who had been thinking all along that they meant Potter to go, lit a cigarette after all.  "Why?" and he thought, so much for eloquence, so much for complex sentences.  He did not wait for an answer; instead he stood, walked to stand in front of the window.  The sun was falling—the sun was dying—the last wan December rays shadowed his face and he touched the patterned saints in the stained glass.  "Why?" he asked again, and he did not turn to face them.  

            All his life he had been driven from choice to choice; all his life he had done what others demanded of him.  Go here, Draco, go there.  Join the Death-Eater Youth, Draco.  Go to Hogwarts, Draco.  Pledge your loyalty to Dumbledore, Draco.  Kill me, Draco.  Save me.  Play Quidditch, Draco, father my children, teach Arithmancy.  He was so tired.  Sometimes he could not remember what it had been like not to be tired.  Always, he did what they asked of him and it was never enough.  Around each corner waited another choice.

            Always he chose wrong.  "Why," he said a third time, and this time it was not a question.  "Why have you done this to me?  Christ.  How can you ask this of me?  What is it you think I am, a tamed falcon to hunt at your command?  You are tearing me apart, all of you!  I fight and fight, and I can't even remember what I'm fighting for, and still you send me onward.  I won't do it.  I'm no hound to run at the heels of the Ministry.  Why can you never leave me the fuck alone?  Why can you never let me live?"  

            Potter, of course, blazed to the attack.  Well, he would.  "Why should you get a choice, Malfoy, when none of the rest of us do?  Part of being a grownup is having to do things you don't want to do.  Like it or not, we are the ones who shape the destiny of the wizarding world these days."  

            "Is part of being a grownup murdering a sixteen year old girl?" Draco demanded.  "Because that's what you're asking me to do, isn't it?  To make her disappear?"  He had not turned; he would not face them, would not let them see him with his defenses down.  All at once the window dissolved in a fall of coloured glass.  The admantine cuffs on his wrists burned and blistered his skin.  He had not known it was possible to do magic with them on; he must be farther from control than he had realized, even.  Now he swung round, but was disappointed to see that they were all of them blank and disapproving and not at all afraid.

            "Yes," Black answered him at last.  "That's exactly what we want you to do, Draco, is to make her disappear.  And we're fully aware that it's a terrible thing to ask of anyone, and most of all of you.  But if this gets out, there will be panic, Draco, like there has never been before.  People are afraid, and Ista Flint and Tom Riddle are far too much alike for comfort.  

            You are a fully trained wizard, Draco; you are the only wizard in England who is not an active Auror and is capable of going up against Ista with a sword or a wand.  You are the only wizard in England, to my certain knowledge, who has used the Unforgivable Curses."

            "I'm still not going to do it," Draco said sullenly.  He forbore on adding, and screw you all, but felt it was strongly implied.  Potter stood up, grabbed his arm, and dragged him into the hall.  Draco rubbed the spot ostentatiously while Potter glared.  "I don't want to do this, Harry," he said at last, in a very small voice.

            Potter softened visibly.  "I know you don't, Malfoy, and to be honest I don't blame you.  If you won't do it, you won't; they can't make you."

            "They can't?" Draco was aware that his disbelief bled through, but Potter didn't seem to mind.

            "I turned them down already, you know," which was not, of course, an answer.  "And, Malfoy, I'm proud of you for refusing.  It wasn't a fair thing to ask."

            Draco, feeling half pleased and half patronized, asked, "What will happen?"

            Potter gave him a sad smile.  "To her, you mean?  They'll find someone to send after her.  And she'll die or go to prison, one or the other.  No one can run forever; you of all people should know that."

            Draco thought that it was easy to stand on one's principles when one didn't know the people involved.  He could picture Ista, terrified and alone.  There was no one for her to run to, no one to speak up for her.  What did Harry Potter know about being alone?  He couldn't go out of his flat without being mobbed.  So she would die, alone and unloved as she had lived, or be dragged back to Azkaban, and in a year or two no one would remember she had ever existed.  No one would remember that Draco had killed her mother and Potter her father, and that the staff and students of Hogwarts had taken even hope away from her.

            "If I go," Draco began, and then stopped.  He did not want to follow that thought to the end, not yet.  Instead he asked, "Do you ever wonder what it is I'm supposed to do?  What it is Dumbledore meant to have me killed for?"

            Potter slanted him a surprisingly shrewd glance.  "Do I?  It doesn't matter, does it?  What matters is if _you_ wonder about it."

            "Oh, I do." Draco responded dryly.  "All the time.  Just this morning, I was wondering what the repercussions were, if I chose toast over crumpets for breakfast."

            Potter grinned.  "How'd you resolve that one?"

            "I had both," Draco admitted.  "It seemed safest."

            "You can't think about it," Potter said after a moment.  "That's my advice, just don't think about it."

            "That's easy for you to say," Draco snapped, but there was no edge to the words.  "Merlin, Potter, what am I going to do?  If I kill Ista, if I don't, if I go after her, if I don't, I end up second-guessing everything.  For all I know, it's too late, and one of the little creeps I teach hasn't got the grounding in Arithmancy it needs and will never be Minister of Magic.  For all I know Granger's baby will grow up to be some kind of monster."

            "Dumbledore can't live forever, you know."

            Draco did know—as a matter of fact he was counting on it.  Still, he had thought Potter rather liked Dumbledore, and so he only raised an eyebrow.

            Potter shrugged.  "I just meant that whatever he meant, it almost has to happen in the next ten years or so."

            "That's true," Draco answered thoughtfully.  "It has to happen, and the consequences have to be clear, all before Dumbledore succumbs to extreme old age. I rather fancied the spawn of Satan theory but I expect that one _is _right out."

            "What are you going to do?" Potter asked very quietly.

            "What can I do," Draco sighed, making it a statement and not a question.  "What I don't want to do but am afraid not to do.  Go after her, make sure the job is done right, make sure she's not too scared.  Let her die the way I would want to die, if it were me."

            "You're going to do it, then?" 

            "There is no one else more suitable, is there?  No one else with the right combination of experience and efficiency."  He thought, but did not say, no one but me—and you.  One did not expect Harry Potter to execute children.  Draco Malfoy, in contrast, was capable of any infamy, any atrocity.  He had turned to go back in when Potter put a hand on his arm.

            "Malfoy, is Hermione's baby yours?" he asked.

            Draco considered lying, but really, what good would it do?  "Yeah," he answered warily and braced himself for a punch in the face.  But once again, Potter surprised him.

            "I'm glad," he said, giving Draco a smile that could have melted stone.  "I'm really glad."

            "Well."  Draco searched for an appropriate response.  "Good."

            They had clearly given up hope that he would go; he could see they had been discussing other options.  They were eager enough that he could tell they had not been successful.  He might have been flattered if he had not known what it was they wanted.  As it was he felt curiously flat, as if he had suddenly been reduced to two dimensions.  All they saw was paper-Draco, who was whatever they wanted him to be.

            They had decided, or perhaps Potter had requested, that he not be sent on his little "mission of mercy" until the following day.  Draco suspected it was because they'd forgotten to bring his wand.  When they had gone he slipped into the bathroom and ran cool water on his wrists.  The bracelets had left puffy white bands on his skin overlaying the scar tissue; they burned, but not nearly as much as he deserved.  He was a Malfoy; he should have kept his temper.  

            The door opened and closed and in the mirror Potter's face appeared above Draco's shoulder.  "Malfoy?" he asked softly, tentatively (which meant that Draco had succeeded in disturbing someone, because Potter was rarely tentative.)  "They want you to meet with a solicitor, someone about the Malfoy Trust."

            Draco swung around, wiping his hand on his robes.  "They want me to what?  There is no Malfoy Trust; there is no more Malfoy legacy to be entrusted.  All I have is my clothes, Potter, and I'll be more than happy to leave them to you—if anyone could use the sartorial assistance—."  

            "Very funny," Potter interrupted, but the edges of his mouth twitched, as if to balance his cool words.  "She's waiting in your office."

            Draco, more curious than anything else, went on his way.  What he had said to Potter was essentially true; the Malfoy fortune, as well as the estate, had been forfeit since the night he had signed it over to Lestrange.  Anything that was left—he winced, thinking of the Rembrandt in the Blue Drawing Room, the Gainsboroughs and Landseers in the dining room, the small Turner in his own bedroom, the shards of Merlin's staff and the nail from the True Cross under the altar in the chapel, the magical artifacts looted or liberated over a millennium-- had no doubt long ago been taken by the Ministry.  But there were always the things in the safe, the things no one could get to but him.  There were perhaps half a million Galleons there, and whatever was left in the Malfoy accounts.

            The solicitor, thankfully, was no one he had ever seen before—a dumpy blonde woman who gave him a cool and appraising look before sitting down unasked.  

            "Well?" Draco asked her, raising an eyebrow.

            She was not flustered by his rudeness.  "I'm Violet Devonshire, Professor Malfoy.  I'm here to go over the terms of the Malfoy Trust with you."

            "I'm sorry," Draco said, making it clear that he was not, "but I think there must be some kind of mistake.  There is no Malfoy Trust; I sold Malfoy House and all its lands and contents just before the war ended.  So there is nothing left but my—personal fortune, which is probably not worth my attention, much less the Ministry's."

            The woman reached into her briefcase and began removing stacks of neatly bound papers.  Draco barely kept himself from pacing or jumping up and down screaming.  There were so many things he needed to do and here he was arguing over an inheritance that didn't exist for an heir that wasn't yet born.  All so that he could be sent to die or kill a girl he was horribly sorry for.  He felt—he felt guilty, which was an unfamiliar feeling and one he did not much like; he felt as if there were bugs crawling under his skin.  

            Violet Devonshire seemed to have found what she was looking for at last.  

She took out a tiny book and tapped it with her wand.  Draco watched as it expanded into a heavy volume bound in green leather, one he recognized at once:  Marmaduke Burke's _Peerage_, the book that listed lines of descent for all the pureblood houses in England.  Despite himself he craned his neck to see his own name.

Malfoy, Earl of

**THE 16TH EARL OF Malfoy**, of Malfoy House, Co Malfait, **Viscount Ednam**, of Ednam, Co Roxburgh, **Baron Ware of Birmingham**, Co Warwick (Dracovel Lucifer Thomas Narcissus PB); Bro SNAPE, SEVERUS HB; [The Rt Hon The Earl of Malfoy, Hogwarts School, Hogsmeade; 6 Desturn Alley, London W8 5PR; Malfoy House, Putsborough, Devon EX33 1LD]; _b_ 5 Mar 1980 (HRH LORD VOLDEMORT stood sponsor); _educ_ Hogwarts; Lieut Pers Ret (MRA) Vol. War II (wounded), Second to Vol.1998-2000; UK National Quidditch Team, Seeker 2010; Professor Hogwarts School 2010-; and has:

**Issue**

**1a Alexander Ivanovanitch HB, of Moscow, RUS, son; _b._ 27 Oct. 2001; by Iliana Ivanovanitch M **

**1b Name, gender, birthdate unk PB; by Marthe Quelfois yr dau Comtesse Dumas, m. Duc de Rouche (see also Dumas, Quelfois, de Rouche) PB Fr.**

**1c Name, gender, birthdate unk PB; by Pansy Parkinson dau Jonathan Parkinson heiress du Parc, never married (see also du Parc; Parkinson; Lestrange-Parkinson, Mari) PB**

**1d  Name, gender, birthdate unk PB; by Hermione Granger, Min of Mag 2007-, MB**

Not very much, to sum up thirty years, and yet Draco knew it was much more than many lesser mortals were granted.  He wondered what had happened to Elizabeth's baby, and felt a brief, unkind stab of pleasure that she had not conceived.  Tracing the words with his finger, he asked, "So, I just pick one of these as my heir?"

Violet Devonshire smiled at him, no doubt glad he had decided to cooperate.  "No," she answered, "I'm afraid it's not that simple.  There are four children listed here, and there is also your half-brother, Professor Snape.  However, one requirement of the Malfoy entail is that heirs be of pure blood, which of course eliminates both Snape and your, er, first born son.  Now, as I am sure you understand, this is highly irregular; it is uncommon for a wizard to have more than one child, and it is very uncommon to have three eligible, all with different mothers.  It would be—unwise—to choose the French child, as de Rouche is known to be a jealous husband, and as there is an additional requirement that your heir be willing to take the Malfoy name…"

Draco knew what it was she was saying, but he could not quite believe it.  "You think I should leave everything to the Mudblood's child?"

The woman grimaced at his language (well, it was possible she was Muggle-born, herself, and really this wouldn't happen, if only they could make them wear some sort of mark) and Draco stared at her, daring her to say something to him.  "I think that that would be the best choice," she responded carefully.

"Fine," Draco snapped, growing tired of the pissing contest, "but there's nothing to leave anyway."

Devonshire raised an eyebrow back.  "I wouldn't call Malfoy House and twelve million Galleons nothing, Professor."

"If I had twelve million Galleons," Draco struggled and failed to keep his voice from rising, "would I be working here at this crap job?  Well?  Would I?"

Sadly, she failed to flinch; he must be losing his touch.  "I can assure you, Professor Malfoy, that you do not have twelve million Galleons—the money belongs to the estate and is held in trust for your heirs, hence the words Malfoy Trust.  You have access only to the interest, which comes to approximately nine hundred thousand a year."

"You mean to tell me that I spent ten years eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in the rain, ten years of having sex with Muggles for money, for Merlin's sake, and you all were sitting on that kind of cash?  How?  I gave the house to Lestrange, you must know that."

"Indeed, Professor, we do."  Violet Devonshire practically smirked at him, and he wondered if it would be difficult to have her fired.  She seemed to sense this, and schooled her features into a more conciliating expression.  "All convicted Death Eaters forfeited their holdings.  Only those not of legal age in the wizarding world—those not twenty-one—were exempt.  In fact, Professor Malfoy, wizards under twenty-one, and more specifically, you, ten years ago, are not able to inherit at all.  Therefore, your transaction with Lestrange was invalid.  When you 'left the country,' your property was still held in trust."

"Oh," Draco said blankly.  It was past midnight and he'd been up since six.  He scrawled his name where he was told to, waited while the solicitor flooed away, and left.  Potter was waiting for him in the corridor, his face set and pale.  He smiled a little anxiously, when he saw Draco; clearly he had been expecting a temper tantrum.  Malfoys did not cry, but they were well known for throwing fits.  What Draco did next surprised them both; one moment he was staring across the hallway from Potter, noticing the way Potter's dark hair fell over his scar into his eyes and the next he was pushing Potter up against the wall, sliding his hands up under Potter's shirt, shoving his hips against Potter's hips and his mouth against Potter's mouth.

It was as if, suddenly, they were sixteen again:  transformed into the children their families and the war had never given them a chance to be.  Because they were not going to make it to a bedroom, Draco knew; they were not even going to have to touch each other.  He had never been this inelegant, this desperate, at sixteen.  He had never felt this way before.  His cock strained against the button-fly of his jeans, against Potter's cock, as if there were not layers of clothing and robes between them.  He rolled his hips and thrust, once, twice, three times, and then he was coming in his pants, there in the corridor outside his office, and thank Merlin all the students were locked in their common rooms and no one was going to wander along.  Potter, a heartbeat behind, came too, and his eyes glazed and his breathing faltered and he leaned his head on Draco's shoulder as if in gratitude.

"Come on," he said, after a moment, "it's past time for bed."

Draco glanced down and was glad to see their robes covered a multitude of sins.  "That's for sure," he answered, laughing.

When they were both lying in Draco's far too narrow bed, pressed shoulder to shoulder and nearly asleep, Potter asked, in a small voice, "What's between you and Snape?"

Draco rolled over onto his elbows and looked Potter in the face.  It was so dark he could see almost nothing, a white blur, a green gleam.  Was that what it was like to be blind?  "He's my brother, you know," he began carefully."

"What?"  Potter's body tensed.

Draco laughed again but this time there was no humor in it.  "Well—half, anyway.  My—our father raped his mother.  She was a little Muggle girl from a town outside Hogsmeade.  Lucius and Tom Riddle caught her and raped her; it was part of the ritual to open the Chamber of Secrets.  I've always wondered if Tom couldn't get it up, he had this thing about women.  But good old Lucius came through.  After—the girl topped herself.  It was an enormous scandal; my grandmother had it hushed up.  The baby—Severus—was fostered out to a wizarding family on the estate.  But they gave him the Dark Mark when he was only a few months old.  He was their prototype, their perfect little Death Eater."

"Does Dumbledore know this?"

Draco sighed, and Potter moved closer.  "He knows.  He's the one who told Snape the truth.  That's why Snape turned, you know, that first time.  He fought with my father and they never spoke to one another again, even after Snape came back to Voldemort.  I've wondered since then, if my father knew Snape was a spy.  It's not widely known, his parentage, even now; there is nothing Snape counts more shameful.  I always admired him, when I was younger.  He's the loneliest person I have ever met."

"I thought…" Potter's voice trailed off.

"I know," Draco said, and was amazed to find it didn't hurt anymore.  "I did, for a while.  But there was no future in it.  I've given it up, and I've got a new dark broody chap now."  In the blackness Potter found his hand and squeezed it, hard, and they fell asleep like that.

In the morning Black woke them, pounding on the door.  Draco slid into his clothes, pulling on the warm black coat that had been Potter's and gathering up his cloak.  He had nothing else to take; he would have to go to Malfoy House first thing and collect his sword.  The thought of Ferux made him smile.  He had missed the familiar weight of the blade against his leg.  Black handed him his wand and the Malfoy signet, and Draco put it on his finger.

He kissed Potter goodbye, already thinking of the hunt.  If he were Ista Flint, where would he go?  Not Dolwyddellan; Riddle House was a museum now, a monument to Muggle-Magical relations.  He held out his wrists to be freed, shook Black's hand, and twisted his ring and was gone.  He landed, stumbling on the rolled carpet of the Red Morning Room, and fetched up against the shrouded form of the sofa.  The paintings had been taken down and (presumably) stored in a crate against one wall; the drapes were gone and the furniture wrapped in dustcovers.  The whole house was like that, half-empty rooms that echoed as he walked past them over bare, shadowy floors.  It was the same and vastly different.

It was while he was opening the safe that he heard it:  a noise that sounded indefinably wrong, different.  Something too big to be a rat.  He took out Ferux, before he turned; in his hand she melted from a gun into the sword he remembered best.  Sword in one hand and wand in the other, he moved to face the threat.  Ista stood perhaps fifteen feet away, her eyes very bright in the dimness.  Draco had seen madness like that before, had seen the way Tom Riddle seemed to shine from within, as if all his energy and focus are turned outwards.  It is as if they are destroying themselves from the inside out.  He had thought she would have been saveable, if he'd gotten to her six months ago, but now he was not so sure.

"Ista," he said as neutrally as possible.  "How did you get in here?  I thought the fireplaces had been blocked."

"I knocked and your gatekeeper let me in," Ista snapped, clearly annoyed at his stupidity.  "I told him I was your mistress."

"I see," Draco answered, aware that laughter might be fatal but very sure that no one in their right mind would believe Ista Flint was any man's mistress.

"Your daughter."  Ista's voice was sulky, her tone familiar; she sounded like any other sixteen year old.  She sounded the way Draco had, caught in a lie by a man he both hated and admired.  He did not point out that as she was sixteen and he was twenty-nine he'd have been one of the youngest fathers on record.  After a long moment she caved.  "I told them I was one of your students, here to pick up a book for you.  They think I Portkeyed out hours ago."

"Look, Ista," Draco began in the careful, reasonable voice he used all too often on Potter, "I'm not going to deny that you're in trouble, okay, I think we both know that."  Ista stared intently back at him, her eyes wide and intense.  Draco was more or less sure that as soon as he stopped talking she was going to strike.  She was practically drooling for his blood.  "Maybe something can be worked out…if you just give me your wand, Ista, I promise I'll do my best to help you.  The important thing is that—."  And what was the important thing?  Whether she came quietly or not, Ista Flint was doomed.  No one walked away from fifteen years of Azkaban, not if they were mad to begin with.  It was kindest to put her out of her misery the way one destroyed a rabid dog.  

Ista stepped back, as if she had heard what he was thinking, and suddenly her wand came up.  "Crucio," she breathed.  This time it worked.  Draco felt the curse burn through him and instinctively tightened his fingers around his own wand, around the hilt of the sword.  The pain was very bad, but not, he thought, as bad as he remembered it.  Voldemort had been able to drive one to one's knees with a whisper, to break one with a thought.  Ista only made him want to fall.  

Clearly she had expected to liquefy him; now she looked surprised and a little hurt by her failure.  Draco could do nothing but grit his teeth and hope for the best as she moved closer.  If she were armed, if she wanted to kill him, there was nothing he could do to fight her off.  Instead she reached for his sword and for a moment her concentration failed.  Draco waited, and as her fingers closed around the blade, he said it:  words not heard in England since the end of the Voldemort wars.  Ista's hand tightened; there was a green flash and then she was nothing but a dead black-clad lump at his feet.  The palm of her hand was open, turned up to the light, and he dipped his fingers in her blood and touched them to his lips.  He could not think what to do next.  

After what seemed like forever Draco took off his coat (well, Potter's coat) and put it underneath her head.  It was a stupid thing to do, but she looked so uncomfortable there on the marble floor.  He fell back on old training:  he raised the Morsmorde over the house and transformed into hawk shape.  He was free, finally, and there was nowhere he wanted to fly.


	11. Lowered Expectations

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES 

There is a secret place  
You'll find a bloodstained fence  
It's there the future speaks  
And she spoke to me

--"Another Night Alone" SR-71

Lowered Expectations

            Harry and Sirius both prowled the room like caged animals, point and counterpoint, until Snape made some cutting remark about dogs on chains.  After that Harry flung himself down in his chair and did his best to focus on grading Malfoy's Arithmancy exams, and Sirius went outside, ostensibly to check his mobile for messages.  Snape himself was busily flipping through dozens of essays, scrawling happily on them in red pen.  Narcissa, in the corner, seemed to be concentrating utterly on the research results she was charting, her sleek blond head bent and her hands steady.  They were Malfoy's family, together for the first time, and they could not even bring themselves to look at one another.  It explained a lot about Malfoy, really, about why he was the way he was.  In the end what was distance but another form of self-defence?  

            This had not been one of Harry's better ideas, dragging all of these people who hated each other into a single place.  Had he thought they would somehow come together because they loved Draco and wanted him to be safe?  Had he thought they could comfort one another, ease the sting of waiting?  Somehow he had.  It was quarter to four; Draco had been gone since six.  He had all of England to search—what were the chances he could find Ista and subdue her in ten hours?  (Harry pointedly did not think about how he would have subdued her.)

            Sirius came back in.  "Ista Flint is dead," he said flatly.  "She was killed early this morning—almost certainly before seven—by an unidentified wizard using the Avada Kedavra curse."  Behind Harry Snape took a deep breath but did not say anything.

            "It wasn't Malfoy, then?" Harry asked hopefully.  "Because if it were, we'd have heard."

            "Harry."  Sirius paused and then went on, his voice gentle.  "Whoever it was got into the house without Apparating or Flooing or knocking on the door.  After—someone raised the Morsmorde, but no one was willing to go into the house to check it out.  We've just gotten our team cleared.  Chances are good it was Draco.  There were traces of Ista's blood on the floor; she had a quite deep cut on her right hand.  There's no reason to think Draco's hurt or anything; doubtless he's just making his own way back."  This last was directed to Narcissa, who did not react in any way.  She was like Malfoy in that, in her stillness, or he was like her.

            Harry moved to sit beside her.  Surely, of all of them, this must be hardest on her.  It was Narcissa, after all, who had carried Draco underneath her heart for nine months, who had watched him grow from a baby to a man; it was Narcissa who knew best what they stood to lose.  Narcissa had become almost a mother to him, in the years since she had married Sirius, but though he had come to love her, he did not claim to understand her.  That she could be waiting, so quietly and patiently; that she had spent ten years and more waiting for Draco to come home.  That she might not mind if he did not come.  Mothers were supposed to love their children when no one else dared to.

            Thinking of this now, he asked, "What was Draco like as a child?"

            Narcissa stared at him, her enormous brown eyes expressionless.  She had not wanted to be here, Sirius had said.  He said she'd been angry, that she'd only agreed to come for appearances' sake.  Harry, though he knew she'd made no effort at all to see Draco since he'd come back to England, that she hadn't spoken to him that day in the garden, hadn't spoken of him in years—Harry preferred to believe it was grief that drove her.  Otherwise, what did it say about her, that she could love Jamie, Sirius, Harry, when she could not love her firstborn son?  He had wanted, desperately and a little irrationally, for Narcissa to be perfect, virtuous and pure; he had wanted her to be his own mother, or at least everything Lily had been rumored to be.  He had almost even believed it; until Narcissa opened her mouth he had thought he had believed it.

            "He was ordinary," Narcissa answered at last.  "He was a lovely, bright, happy little boy.  What do you want to hear, Harry?  That his father created him in his own image?  That we didn't love him enough?  That I didn't love him, at all?  He was ordinary, Harry, he played Quidditch, he wanted to be a singer in a Muggle band when he was nine.  He wasn't a murderer.  I don't think…I don't know, I don't know him at all, I never have."

            And with that Snape was on his feet, sending the table, the neat stacks of essays, flying.  Harry had never seen him angry, not like this; there was none of the cold distance of the classroom here.  For a moment he saw what it was Draco fancied, saw, too the resemblance to Lucius Malfoy.  For a moment the light, the passion that blazed on Snape's face made him human.  "How would you know?" he demanded.  Sirius had come to his feet, was moving forward; Snape ignored him.  All his attention was on Narcissa, and if a look could have killed her, his surely would have done.  "How would you know anything of him at all?  A murderer?  What makes him a murderer and Harry, or your precious husband, soldiers?  It is the winners who write the history books, indeed!  Call him what you will, Narcissa, call all of it what you will.  But for Merlin's sake, don't judge him, you cold-hearted bitch.  You and my father did your best to tear him to pieces from the very beginning—."

            Sirius said, very quietly, "That's enough, Snape."  

            Snape turned and looked at him.  "She's beautiful, Black, but beauty doesn't keep you warm at night, you know.  Beauty doesn't sit up at night with sick children, or teach them their letters, or remember birthdays."  His wand appeared in his hand; he muttered some small spell and his beloved papers sprang into a pile.  He gathered them and was gone in a swirl of black cloak and forbidding dignity.

            Sirius dropped to crouch beside Narcissa's chair and pressed his forehead against her arm.  Narcissa smiled a little, sadly, and ran her fingers through his hair.  In repose she was even lovelier:  pale and proud as a queen.  She whispered, so softly that Harry almost didn't hear her, "I didn't love him, but I love you."  He wished he had not heard her, that he could go on believing that Malfoy had grown up wealthy and spoiled and idolized.

            When she was dead at his feet Draco's first instinct (and his second, and his third) was to run and never look back.  In bird form he flew out into the gray dawn, heading steadily north toward nothing.  He flew for hours, until the joy of flight began to overcome the numbing grief he felt.  Late in the afternoon he found himself above a heavily forested area and he swooped lower, among the trees.  Spotting a rabbit, he dived:  the original Wronski Feint.  He killed it and ate, and perched in a tree to rest.  

            When he woke it was fully dark and the euphoria of sun and wings and wind had worn away.  He fluttered slowly to the ground and transformed, which was a mistake.  He could taste the rabbit's blood in his mouth, and perhaps Ista's blood as well, and he was abruptly, shatteringly sick.  He crawled until he found a tree to lean against, and curled into a ball and tried to keep from shivering.  It took him a very long time to catch his breath; the detached portion of his mind attributed this to cold, and shock, but mostly he was consumed with the thought of his warm dry bed, and the comforting lump of Potter's body.  

            It was not until he could stand again that he realized he'd dropped his wand.  By then it had begun to snow and the world had narrowed to black and white.  He fumbled increasingly desperately and in the end gave up.  He had learned early on to work an Animagus spell without a wand, but doing so took more energy than he could summon.  He was afraid of winding up half changed, a man with hawk's wings and a beak, unable to utter a charm even if he found a wand.  In the end he spent what remained of the night huddled under a bush, starting at every sound.  

            The sun rose, and he found his wand less than a yard from his hand.  He was suddenly so hot he burned; he changed and flew like a bullet south toward Hogwarts.  The journey was a nightmare blur of fever and ice, half-formed recriminations and second thoughts.  Why had he not kept Ista talking?  Why hadn't he simply gone back to Malfoy House and waited for Potter to come?  By twilight he was so tired he could barely see.  He was nearly home; he could afford to rest.  A small brown animal moved at the edge of his vision and he plummeted downward but his talons closed on empty air.  Fever or exhaustion or hunger, something was making him hallucinate.  

            He let go his Animagus form and stretched; what use a hawk's wings without a hawk's judgment?  He started at a movement in the shadows, and turned his head slowly, half-afraid that whatever it was would be gone.  But no, still it was there.  A man, here where no one had dared go since Hagrid died.

Perhaps one wizard in ten knew how it was that Salazar Slytherin had been martyred; perhaps one in twenty knew why.  Draco had had the story repeated to him over and over as a child, a strange, almost biblical litany.  Saint Salazar, now defrocked by magical and Muggle churches alike; Salazar had died for the sins of the wizarding world.  Salazar:  crucified by William Rufus the king, and left to die in the very heart of the Forbidden Forest—the most magical, and dangerous, place in all the British Isles.  Salazar Slytherin, whom Lucius Malfoy and Tom Riddle had raised almost to godhood.

            Slytherin stared at him, his eyes like flames in his pale face, and Draco put his hand on his sword hilt and was surprised to find a sword there.  "Malfoy," Slytherin said, and his voice grated, rusty with disuse or pain.  A thousand years of crucifixion would do that to anyone.  The small wound on his side trickled blood and his arms sagged—they had bound and not nailed him to the cross—but his face was as fierce as a nightmare, fierce as in the picture book of saints Draco had had as a child.  Around his neck a snake was coiled, seemingly oblivious to the snow.

            "Malfoy," and this time the weight of the word staggered Draco.  But he did not, would not kneel; he had always approached life on his own terms whatever the consequences and no hallucination would make him fall.

            "What?" he gritted his teeth and demanded, "What is it you want from me?"

            "The dark is rising, Malfoy, and only you can turn it back."

"Why should you think I could stop it?  Why should I even try to stop it?" 

"Little Malfoy dragon," Slytherin's words burned through Draco until he almost screamed.  "Bad faith, no faith, misplaced faith, but the Malfoys are always true to themselves.  Save my people, Draco Malfoy."

Without another thought Draco transformed and flew, panic like ice in his veins.  Ten minutes hard flight brought him within sight of Hogwarts; five minutes more and he was at the window of the Owlery, stumbling into human form.   His body felt strange to him, unfamiliar and unwelcome, and he almost cried out when something in the shadows moved.  It resolved itself into Severus Snape, gray against the blackness.  Draco blinked at him uncertainly, not sure if he were real. They had played out this scene so many times before.  But Snape caught his wrist and steadied him, gripping tight enough to bruise, hard enough that Draco knew he had not imagined or remembered it.  There was something on Snape's hands; Draco pulled back, so hard that he nearly lost his balance, and stared.

"What's so wrong?" Snape demanded.  

"The blood…why is there blood on your hands?"

Snape glanced down in surprise, and slowly turned his hands palm up.  They were an unearthly white shade in the darkness, pale and slender, faintly stained with potions.  There was no blood anywhere.  "Oh," Draco said faintly, "I thought—."

"Come on," Snape's voice was cool but there was an edge of concern to his words.  "We'd best get you to the hospital wing."

"Wait!"  Draco knew there was something he had meant to ask, and after a moment a question came to him.  "Where is Potter?"

"Downstairs, waiting patiently as any Gryffindor," Snape answered.  "Malfoy—."

"Wait," Draco said again.  "Is Dumbledore planning to tell the Muggle government about us?"

"Where did you hear that?" 

"'Five years, at the outside.  More likely it will be two.'  You didn't need to ask what war I was talking about.  You _knew_ what I meant.  You know what this means!"

"It means the end of everything," Snape responded, very softly.  "I am doing what I can to stop it.  How did you know?  You were fishing before, but not this time.  Who told you?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I said it," Draco answered, and Snape blinked at him.  "It wasn't Potter, Severus—it wasn't anyone you know."  Catching Snape's eye, he couldn't help laughing, which set off a coughing fit that nearly killed him.  (Hysteria, his mind catalogued.)

Snape looked like he was considering arguing, but instead he propped Draco up with one arm and began the trek to the hospital wing.   Draco, no longer sure how much of what he was seeing was real, was glad of the help.  They staggered down seemingly endless hallways, down crumbling staircases Draco could not remember having seen before, and all the while Draco tried not to think of what war would be like.  There were fifteen Muggles in Britain for every wizard, fifteen men and women raised to fear what they did not understand and hate what they feared.  It would, in fact, be the end of everything.  "It will be very bad when it comes," he said at last, almost but not quite to himself, and Snape stopped and heaved him up against the wall.  

"Malfoy," he began, and his voice and his eyes were very serious, without even a trace of a sneer.  "Malfoy, what's wrong with you?   For Merlin's sake, I've seen you bathe in the blood of innocents, practically.  What is it about the death of this little girl that is bothering you so?"

Draco, his defenses in ruins, said (for the first time in _years_) exactly what he was thinking, "She reminded me of Lucius."  And thought—so that's what is bothering me.  In his mind's eye he could see it:  Ista on the marble floor, Lucius in the snow:  their heads at such an unnatural angle, their eyes blank, their fingers slowly curling inward, the smell… Lucius on the marble floor, Ista in the snow, or had it been the other way around?  Ten years on the run, ten years as human trash, and he had never taken the time to mourn his father.  A part of him knew that that was not all this was about, that there was more wrong with him than his sorrow, however real, for the dead.  The rational part of his mind thought Cruciform, and depression, and was speedily silenced.

Snape was trembling against him, that old connection between them throbbing as if it had never been away.  Shared blood, in more ways than one.  "It will be very, very bad.  Draco, you have to be careful—this is why Dumbledore wanted you dead, I'm sure of it.  There's something you're going to do, once the truth is out, something he will kill to prevent."  Slowly, he straightened against Draco, as if by sheer will, hardening himself once more.  "Mr. Malfoy, I want you to know that—whatever happens—I am proud to have fought beside you.  You did—you did what had to be done, as befits a true son of our line."

"Oh," Draco managed, and then everything spun.  

When he woke he was in the infirmary, in a narrow, hard bed, with Harry Potter a warm presence at his back.  There were worse things to come back to, and worse people.  He sat up too fast, and set off another coughing fit, and Potter rubbed his back with surprising gentleness until he got his breathing under control.  For a moment, everything was right, as if a large part of their lives had never been.  Difficult to imagine, because they would not have been themselves.  Truly, it was probably not much easier to be anyone else these days.  

"Potter," he gasped when he had gotten his breath back, "I'm glad that you're here."

"Hey, me too."  Potter, despite his professed desire for closeness, was as awkward with tenderness as Draco; now he flushed a mildly endearing pink:  part embarrassment and part pleasure, one hoped.  "Look, Malfoy, everyone else's been let out early for Christmas, what do you say we take off too?"

Draco looked around.  Bare white walls, uncurtained windows, and not a single flower to be seen; it just went to show that Gryffindors had no social graces whatsoever.  "Yes," he answered, "take me home," and he was thinking not of the cool silence of Malfoy House, waiting patiently and wearily for its master, but of Potter's small and filthy flat.

"Lucky thing we're wizards," Potter was saying briskly as he helped Draco wrap himself in a sheet, "I can't find your clothes and it would be much too cold to go outside like this.  But we can just Floo—oh.  Malfoy, I meant to tell you, your mother is here."

He looked so stricken Draco had to choke back a laugh.  "It doesn't matter, Potter; in fact I'm thrilled not to have to contend with her.  Merlin knows what she thinks of this latest escapade—you may have begun to notice she's not exactly thrilled with me at the best of times."

"Yeah," Potter admitted, looking away.  Draco wondered, briefly and without much interest, what had happened between Potter and Narcissa to put that extra edge of disenchantment in Potter's tone.  Really, it was a welcome change no matter what the reason.  Then he and Potter were in the living room of the Hogsmeade apartment, coming out of the fireplace in such a rush they fell over the coffee table and landed on the couch.  

It was only then that Draco realized his wand was still firmly clenched in his left hand, his signet ring still on the middle finger of his right.  "They let me keep it?" he asked, surprised.  "Why would they let me keep it?"

Potter smiled at him, a little sadly.  "You're free, Malfoy, didn't you notice?  You've done what they wanted."  

Draco stared.  "They—wanted me to be an assassin?  That was what it took to earn the country's trust?  Killing a child?"  Potter went a little white around the mouth, and Draco took it back.  "Never mind."  

"I love you, Malfoy, you know that?"  Said casually enough, though Potter could not quite meet his eyes.

"Yeah," Draco answered, keeping his voice light.  "I know that."  Which got him a smile, and a kiss, and a very pleasant half hour or so.  They went to bed, that night, with the sun, but the next morning when Potter got up to go to work Draco stayed burrowed in the warmth of the bed.  He did not get up until noon; it felt dreadfully déclassé.  Malfoys did not sleep late, not when there were worlds to conquer, but at the same time he was so very tired. 

The next day, and the next, he was still tired:  remnants of Cruciatus, he supposed, or an effect of the cough that made his breathing burn.  On Christmas Granger and Ron came for dinner (rather, with dinner) and he made an effort to be cheerful and pleasant, he could tell that Potter was pleased, but it bothered him that it _was_ an effort.  He felt—drained, almost.  Just when he'd hoped the party was over Ron, mildly plastered, insisted on telling fortunes.

Draco thought, but did not say, that any gift for Divination Ron might once have had must long ago have been pickled.  He knew that this was an old tradition, and he did his best to help, assisting Potter in the search for the Tarot cards they'd used over the summer to play Exploding Snap.  In the end the cards were summoned from under the couch cushion and Draco humored Ron by cutting and shuffling the slightly sticky deck.  Ron dealt him seven cards, laying them out in a cross on the coffee table.  When the first card was turned over Granger gasped and with the second Potter whitened; by the time Ron had finished his hands were shaking.  "Death," he said softly, "but not for you; you will sacrifice that which you love most to save the world."  From the face of every one of the cards in the deck the patient haunted eyes of the Hanged Man stared back at them.  

Draco swept up the cards and threw them into the fire.  "Well.  That was awkward.  What say we pretend this never happened?"  The others were very quick to voice their agreement; children's game or no he could see they were frightened.  As if they were children, he packed them off home to bed, making vague reassuring noises all the while.  When he and Potter were alone they carefully did not look at one another, and the next day it might have been a dream, but for the ashes in the fireplace, the scorched face of the Hanged Man staring sadly at nothing from a torn remnant of pasteboard.

            The week between Christmas and New Year's Draco and Potter housesat for Black and Narcissa; Draco slept twelve hours a night and spent the afternoons going through his mother's things, partly out of curiosity and partly in search of—what?  Some scrap of her old life, some sign that she remembered her first husband, her first child.  He knew it was stupid to care, but he couldn't seem to help himself.  Under the lining paper of Black's desk he found a letter from Remus Lupin—why Black would be hiding that, there was no telling—and Muggle pornography; Narcissa had a full stash of birth control potions in a concealed cabinet in her workroom.  Not very interesting secrets.

            Finally, on the third day, he hit the mother lode:  an ordinary cardboard box the size of a case of beer, spellotaped at the corners and buried twelve feet under the flagstone patio.  It was a good thing, probably, that Potter was at work; Draco would have a hard time explaining why he'd felt the need to spend the afternoon ripping up the stones and digging a hole in the frozen ground.  He dragged the box into the house, grimacing at the trail of dirt it left on the carpet.  But it was not his house, not his carpet, although it had begun to look rather like Potter's flat already.  He moved a Coke can full of cigarette butts, an almost empty ashtray, and a picture of Jamie in silver frame, and heaved the box onto the buffet in the dining room.

            The cardboard was rotten on the outside, but it had clearly been spelled; the contents were perfectly dry.  He removed an envelope full of pictures, a worn baby blanket embroidered with his initials, a platinum christening mug that had been a gift from Voldemort, file folders full of health records, birth certificates, old school papers and tests, a wedding album, the (probably priceless) Malfoy engagement and wedding rings wrapped in a Ziploc bag full of plastic Easter grass.  He wondered what Potter would do if he were presented with the diamond and decided the potential amusement would not be worth the effort of explaining where he had gotten it.  In the end he kept out the rings to put in the Malfoy House safe, and the photographs and put the rest back in the hole.  With a little luck Narcissa would never notice anything had gone—there would certainly not be a Malfoy marriage in his generation.  Potter came home just as he was Reparo-ing the last of the flagstones and Draco was forced to pretend he'd been looking at the scenery, such as it was.

            He thought, that week, that whatever it was that was bothering him could be blamed on the pictures, on evidence that his mother might not love him but she had not forgotten him.  Yet even at Hogwarts, even waiting for the term to start, he felt—restless, uneasy, exhausted.  Not himself, and not at home in his own skin.  For a man who never cried, he was perilously close to tears.  He wanted to fly into the sun, he wanted to crawl into bed and never come out.  He had bitten the inside of his bottom lip, sometime after Ista died and before coming back to Hogwarts, and now he could not stop biting it; his mouth was sore and raw and it hurt him to eat, to drink coffee, to kiss Potter.  Sometimes he started to cough and could not stop.  But these were small things next to the weight of the darkness pressing on his mind.

            The night before the students were to arrive Potter stayed over and in the morning he and Draco went to the Great Hall for breakfast.  They were sitting at high table (Potter eating as if he'd never see food again, which given that he had to eat his own cooking was not completely untrue) when a small tawny owl dropped a white envelope on Draco's plate.  He slit it open carefully to reveal a single sheet of black-bordered paper, heavy linen that smelled faintly of lilacs.  It was engraved with Gabrielle Delacour's name and address, and beneath it in delicate black pen had been written, **Murderer**.

            Sickened, he threw it down and stood.  He was not angry, exactly, because after all it was true; he was not even sorry, because what choice had he had?  Potter was standing, too, but Draco forced a smile and said, "Excuse me for a moment, everyone," and he subsided.  In the bathroom, he leaned against a wall and gasped for breath.  Murderer.  And he was, too, a hundred times over; he could not even remember the first person he'd killed.  It was not as if the word was new to him, not as if he had not been called worse names.  He couldn't imagine why this was bothering him so.

            The door opened, closed; he thought, Potter, and did not look up.  He stayed where he was, and he said, very softly, that there was something wrong with him, and that he was sorry.  Only, of course, he was a Malfoy, and rarely said what he meant, and somehow the words came out, "I wish I were dead."  There was, of course, nothing he could have said that would have hurt Potter more, but when he looked up it was not Potter in the doorway.  

It was Dumbledore, blue eyes twinkling rather less than usual, who said, "Don't be so melodramatic, Mr. Malfoy."

A.N.  I'm sorry for the delay in updating!  Real life has just been a little overwhelming lately.  For those who asked, this is chapter 11 of a planned 18--there's a lot still to come.  A new chapter of Requiem, featuring Hermione, should be out soon.  In the meantime, my website is available at:[url= Until Proven Innocent/url].  Thanks to everyone who reviewed--next chapter will be called Lords of the Morning.  Love, Ishafel.


	12. Lords of the Morning

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

_Some will fall in love with life   
and drink it from a fountain   
that is pouring like an avalanche   
coming down the mountain_

_--"Pepper" The Butthole Surfers___

Lords of the Morning

            "Oh, but you of all people should want me dead," Draco said, and Dumbledore smiled a little, showing a few too many teeth.  He looked like an elderly, bookish satyr, and there was something green in his beard that might have been grass but probably wasn't.  Draco looked away.

            "I do want you dead," Dumbledore answered, finally.  "But you of all people should know that we do not always get what we want."

            "Don't we?" Draco kept his voice expressionless, but he was thinking of Grindelwald—how she had died for having something Dumbledore wanted.  Dumbledore was no different than Voldemort; both of them believed in absolutes and both of them were wrong as much as they were right.  Both of them had killed for their causes.  Between them they had torn his life apart.

            Dumbledore moved closer, put out his hand to touch Draco's chin.  Draco fought back the urge to flinch; he was used to being admired, though he did not like it.  Dumbledore's hands were hard and surprisingly strong, a penance before the sin; Draco hated to be touched.  He stared at the old man, and Dumbledore stared back, and there were footsteps in the hall.  His wand was in his sleeve; stealthily he dropped it and concentrated on not looking down.  He raised a hand and Dumbledore startled, grabbed for and caught his wrist.  He took a step back, and then another, until the wall was hard at his back and his arm twisted painfully in Dumbledore's grip.  Then Draco shut his eyes and let his face go blank:  a simple, useful little spell, that let those who saw him see whomever they wanted to see.   

            "Don't," he said, while with his mind he urged Dumbledore on.  A useful trick for a whore to know.  The footsteps were closer now, just outside the door.  Dumbledore's mouth was brutal on his, and he whispered between them, "Do it, Headmaster, make it rape.  Let them see what it is you are."  He felt as much as saw Dumbledore's eyes widen, and he wrenched away, letting himself fight to be free.  "Stop it!" and the hysteria in his voice was honest enough.  The door flew open and crashed against the plaster of the wall, and in the doorway were Harry Potter, Poppy Pomfrey, and Severus Snape.  

            Though he did not allow himself to feel satisfaction, Draco knew how this must look:  himself, disarmed and backed into a corner with Dumbledore holding him at bay and slavering over him.  Snape might have his suspicions but he was their father's son and would keep his mouth shut; Pomfrey looked horrified—and well she might, useless old bat.  And Potter, Potter's reaction was everything Draco could have hoped for.  The rage in those green eyes was a fearsome thing; Draco had faced it himself of old and knew it well.  He had never before seen it turned on someone else.

            "What," Harry Potter demanded, "is going on here?"

            Dumbledore's head bent under the weight of the words.  He looked, suddenly, an old man, beaten and broken.  Draco was gladder even then he had expected to be.  He could see that this was the end, that Potter would never look at Dumbledore the same way.  He had not won very often, not where Dumbledore was concerned.  He made himself sag against Potter's arm, and was warmed by the other man's concern.  Snape, he noticed, was eying him carefully; no doubt he wondered why Draco hadn't simply changed shape and torn out Dumbledore's eyes.  Draco willed him to silence, and he looked away.

            "I didn't mean," and Dumbledore's voice trailed away.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy, I don't know what came over me."  He backed out of the room, and Draco watched him go, his head on Potter's shoulder.  

            When he thought they had begun to accept what had happened he said flatly, "I'm going to be sick," and let Potter help him to a toilet.  They stayed that way for a long time, Draco on his knees, struggling to bring up the little he had eaten, helped by the memory of Dumbledore's mouth on his, Potter behind him choking back sobs, Snape and Pomfrey frozen in the doorway.  When at last he stood, Snape began, a little reluctantly, "Professor Malfoy, I will see to it that this matter is handled discreetly.  Should you wish to press charges…"

            Draco smiled his best martyr's smile.  His mouth felt stiff and sore and he hoped that the effort was convincing.  "I hardly think that would be wise," he answered.  It was true, too; though they would not dare use the Veritas charm on a man Dumbledore's age, there was no telling what an in-depth investigation might turn up.  It was enough to have ruined whatever was between Potter and Dumbledore; even if Potter were not an essential ally in the coming war, it had clearly been the thing the old man valued most.

            Snape bowed, and his dark eyes danced.  Draco sent him a warning glare; they would never be able to explain away laughter.  He put his hand on Potter's and said, "Please, I'd like to go and lie down." 

            Potter caught his hand up and pressed a kiss as gentle as a prayer into Draco's palm.  He could not bear for Draco to be hurt, unless of course he hurt him himself.  And yet, Draco knew he meant well, that even the small cruelties he had almost outgrown had been more carelessness than anything else.  There was no pettiness to Harry Potter; he would have been appalled to realize that Draco's evisceration of Dumbledore had been purposeful .  That, of course, was the difference between Gryffindor and Slytherin to begin with:  that Gryffindor hid behind the illusion that an end justified an action—that an end was necessary to justify an action.  They were all of them staring at him, and Draco was grateful they seemed to expect such weakness.  It saved him the trouble of trying to act brave but broken.  

            Far easier, as it happened, to slope off to bed with Potter, to stand trembling in the shower while Potter's mouth reduced him to speechlessness.  Far easier to lie beside him in the narrow bed.  The only trouble with Potter was that he was far too easy to grow attached to; there was something intoxicating about the gentleness with which he set out to comfort not-really-wounded Draco.  What would it have been like to have him to come home to, all those years ago with Voldemort?  Thinking of that, he wondered how Potter could believe he had survived rape to be shattered by a kiss.  

            The truth was that Potter was more talented than bright; the thought made Draco a little angry.  It was not as if he had not known this, and yet what did it say about him that this was his mate?  Only it did not matter, because it was not as if Potter were going to bear Malfoy heirs.  The mother of Draco's child was the brightest witch of his generation.  That would have pleased his father—Lucius had realized that new blood was as important as pure blood.

            As if Potter had sensed Draco's thoughts, he rolled onto his side and asked in a small voice, "What would your father have said about what happened today?"

            There was no reason to lie.  Draco told him the truth.  "He would have said that I've been acting like a faggot, that I got what I deserved."

            Potter made a hurt, gulping sound and Draco relented.  "Look, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I know, but my father wasn't—what he had with Riddle wasn't really about sex.  It was about power.  The idea that two people can be together, not because they want something but because they want to—that was absolutely foreign to him."  Without meaning to he touched his tongue to the raw place on the inside of his lip.  Potter nodded gravely, as if he understood.  That made one of them.  Draco closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted, and fell asleep without meaning to.

            When he woke it was late morning and Potter was gone.  The room was filled with streaming sunlight, and from far away he could hear voices.  He had slept the clock around without meaning to.  But that was January, as it turned out:  weak sunshine and too much sleep and students who were suddenly respectful and distant.  Even the teachers made an effort now; it was a shame that somehow Draco could not bring himself to care.

            In mid-January he found a copy of _Owl Magazine_ (Politics!  Personalities!  Power!  News for the Liberal Wizard) with his own face blazoned on the cover.  Draco Malfoy, the most dangerous man in England, if you were a child or an old man.  He threw it in the fire and watched himself burn.  Then he cancelled his classes for the afternoon and slunk back to bed.  The only warm place in the castle, he justified it to himself—the house elves still hated him, and the chimney in his room smoked unbearably—ironic that Hogwarts' non-human occupants were so much better at holding grudges.  

            In February Vincent Crabbe came to see him, but he was not the Vincent Crabbe Draco remembered.  A big man, though he had not run to fat the way his father had done by thirty; he had grown handsome, with a hard square face.  Blind, wearing dark glasses even in day, glasses that no doubt covered the scars around his eyes—burn marks and skin grafts and failed surgeries.  He put out his hand and Draco took it, feeling the other man tremble despite his deceptive air of calm.  What must it be like to be Vin these days and was it worse than being Draco Malfoy?  He had half expected Vin to kill him upon entry but instead Vin let go the deathgrip on his wand and took out a stack of files.

            "I just need you to look these over.  Let me know what you think, Professor," he said evenly, handing Draco papers on which raised dots transformed themselves into letters.  

            Draco flipped through the pile, one eye on Crabbe; after all it was not as if the other man could see him staring.  A part of him wondered coldly if it would not be better to be dead than blind.  But perhaps Vin had forgotten what it was like to be able to see the sun; perhaps he no longer knew what it was he was missing.  They were letters.  All of them were letters from the tenants who lived on the Malfoy estate.

            "Dear Draco," they began, or "Lord Malfoy—", or even "My lord earl:."   The earliest were dated from the week he had returned to England; the most recent was only two days old.  They were heartbreaking, some of them, and some of them almost made him laugh.  "Please, we need money for a doctor."  "Please, the roof has been leaking."  "I demand that you see to it that the bars are open on Sundays."  "We need justice, we need food, we need a new quidditch pitch."  And:  "The old earl would have done it," "Lucius understood…" "Your father was always there for us."  Draco stared at Vincent, wondering whether Vin could feel eyes on him, and shuffled through the letters again.  There were thirty-nine of them, organized chronologically, and most of the concerns they addressed should have been dealt with by the Ministry.

            "Do what they ask," he said eventually, flatly.  Vin started as if he were just recalling Draco's presence in the room.  No doubt he was thinking of the past, of a country ruled by a madman—two madmen—of a time when he and Draco would have killed for one another.

            "Everything they ask, m'lord?" Vin asked, his voice dry.  Was he laughing?  Did it matter?   

            "Everything," Draco answered, hoping he'd not just acceded to anything wild.  Vin made as if to leave, and turned back.  Between them stood the dead:  Greg and Tarquin and Kelso and Blaise and the others.  Sometimes he thought that everyone he knew was dead.  And could a blind man even see ghosts?

            "Malfoy," Vin began, and this time there was no trace in his voice of the man he had once been.  He had not grown up to be his father, any more than Draco had.  He was no longer Draco's friend; that had been a long time ago and the past was another country altogether.  Vin stopped in the center of the room and undid his tie and unbuttoned his collar, and his fingers were very deft.  What need, after all, had a blind man for a mirror?  "Malfoy, which side are you on?"

            Draco fought to keep from laughing.  "What difference does it make," he demanded.  Vin came closer still, and Draco did laugh, not so much because it was funny but because he didn't know what else to do.  There was a small tattoo of a phoenix in the hollow of Vin's throat, a tattoo Draco recognized; the Order of the Phoenix marked its members so.  If Vin was here as their representative than he was moving in different circles indeed; and far more exalted ones at that.  

            The Order of the Phoenix were the most dangerous wizards in England with Voldemort's DeathEaters gone; they had, in all probability, been the most dangerous wizards long before that.  They were purebreds—they required six generations of wizard's blood on each side for admission, and Vin must have just squeaked in—and they opposed contact between the wizarding and Muggle worlds.  They were dangerous because they remained in the shadows, and many wizards did not believe they existed.  They were dangerous because they were committed to this one end, to the exclusion of all others, and had been for more than eight hundred years.  They were dangerous because they would do anything, anything at all, in the service of the order.

            Orion Malfoy, Draco's grandmother, had been Grand Dragon of the order once; that was how Draco knew of it at all.  Her son, Lucius, had been its most spectacular failure, the only man in its history to break faith with the Phoenix and live.  They had not opposed Voldemort, because he was not a threat to their cause, but they had not supported him openly either; he was, after all, only a half-bred.  No one who bore the Dark Mark was welcome in the order (they did not, after all, suffer fools) and Draco guessed Vin was risking rather a lot to have revealed even this much to a known DeathEater.

            "I'm on the same side as you," he said, and he knew it was the truth, "and I think that I can bring Harry Potter with me."

            Vin nodded. "We will need leaders, Malfoy, when the time comes.  We will need men tested in battle, men who are willing to sacrifice."

            "I understand."  And he did, of course; Vin's visit had been sanctioned because they wanted the Malfoy name, a famous face, the skills he had acquired in the last war.  They wanted him because they knew what he was; most of all they did not want to stand against him.  He swallowed to keep from being sick and did not watch Vin go; this was not the childhood friend he had remembered or wanted to remember, but a man sharpening a sword against future need.  He did not hate Draco, or love him, any more than a man hated any tool.

            All his life Draco's perceptions of himself had been shaped by those who loved and hated him:  by his father, Vincent, Greg, Pansy, Snape, by his mother, Harry, Dumbledore.  For the ten years after the war this had kept him sane, and now it seemed that everything was changing.  It made him wonder who he was, now that what he remembered was gone.  Somehow he was in his rooms, in the bath, standing in front of the mirror.  The face that looked back at him was too thin, too pale, with lines of strain that would one day be permanent ringing the mouth.  It was not a face he recognized; it was the face of a desperate man.

            "Show me your arm," the mirror demanded.  "I won't have any Death Eaters, and you're losing your looks at any rate."  He meant only to quiet the thing; he rolled back his sleeve to pacify it.  Suddenly he was pounding the mirror into fragments, and the pain in his hand, when it came, was immediate and excruciating.  He fell, and caught himself on his injured hand, and bit his lip to keep from screaming.  The shard of silvered glass through the heel of his palm hurt more than he had imagined anything could hurt; there was warm bright blood everywhere.  For the first time since had killed Ista Flint his head was perfectly clear.  He knew exactly what was happening:  that the blood running like a fountain meant a severed artery in his wrist, that it would not take him long to bleed to death, that if he were to survive he should summon help immediately.

            Draco clawed his way to his knees, caught his breath, and let it out again suddenly.  Why, precisely, scream?  Why not die, quickly, from what was indisputably an accident?  Let Potter remember him as a man who had died foolishly, after having attacked a piece of furniture.  There was no shame in stupid fits of temper, not for a Gryffindor.  No shame, no guilt, and an easy escape; really everyone went home a winner.  

            The outer door, the one that opened into the corridor, imploded into the bedroom and Draco struggled to turn his head.  He must have been lying on his back, because a black clad figure loomed over him.  He had never seen Snape so angry, or had never seen the anger directed at himself; the Potions Master looked rather like a vulture in a rage.  Draco closed his eyes and let the words wash over him, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out when Snape touched his injured hand.  

            Very shortly after that the pain was gone, and Snape's magic poured into him like sunlight.  Draco, still light-headed, struggled to sit up, Snape pushed him back down, and then he must have passed out.  He woke up in the hospital wing of Hogwarts, as usual, in the private room reserved for professors, with its yellowing walls and cracked ceiling.  Potter was curled up beside him, taking up well over half of the narrow bed and sleeping so deeply that he did not even turn over when Draco slid out.  

            He moved to stand in front of the narrow, uncurtained window, and was not even surprised when the other man joined him.  "Little Malfoy," Salazar Slytherin said, and his voice was gentle, almost kind, "Let me see your hand."

            Draco knew which hand he meant.  He held it out, palm upward.  The wound had been healed, but there was a scar as wide around as a Galleon, fresh and pink and shiny against the older scars.  Slytherin traced the lines of Draco's palm with a slender, jeweled forefinger and smiled.  "Your love line—here—you will have one great love, all your life.  Your life line, here; long life, Little Malfoy, and well lived.  Here, come with me."

            Without a word Draco followed him; what else did one do, but follow, when a saint commanded one?  Slytherin led him out into the infirmary's waiting room and gestured to the chairs.  Draco sat down across from him and watched as Slytherin drew a packet of cards from his pocket.  Not this again, he thought, remembering Ron Weasley's attempt at fortunetelling, but the cards behaved exactly as they were supposed to.  

"Death," Slytherin read, "Crossed by the Hierophant.  A world in the balance.  Those who will determine it:  the Knight of Swords—see how fair he is, that is you, Little Malfoy, and the King of Cups—he is the old man you hate, the Page of Pentacles your brother—he has something to tell you, in time, and the Magician, reversed—a group that you must make what you will of.  Now, what they all strive toward is the Tower, a dangerous card at the best of times.  And what must be done?  A sacrifice, that is the Hanged Man.  Or the Ten of Swords, the end of the world.  And what determines this?  Justice.  And the Six of Wands crosses Justice, so that either victory or destruction will be total.  One world or the other, there are no compromises." 

"Why?"  Draco asked, as Slytherin began to gather the cards into a pile.

The other man shuffled the cards and cut the deck.  "Tell me, my silver dragon, can you name the six Great Houses?"

Draco closed his eyes and repeated the names.  "Slytherin.  Malfoy, Plantanaget, du Parc, Devereux, and de Michel."  Five Norman names, the five who had come to England with William the Bastard.  And one Pictish name, the Druidic family that had dominated England for a thousand years before.

"And Slytherin was first of them all," Slytherin recited as if from a child's rhyme.  "But Slytherin is dead, and Plantanaget, and the others are lost or leaderless.  Only the Malfoys still follow the old ways.  Only you, Draco.  You and your heirs are sworn to defend the land forever.  You are the only one who both sees the danger in what the old man means to do, and is wise enough to stop it."  

He stood, and Draco scrambled to his feet as well.  "Kneel before me, Dracovel Malfoy, Earl of Malfoy.

"Malfoys kneel before no man," Draco answered, a little wearily.  "I did not kneel before Dumbledore or Voldemort and I will not kneel before you."  It had been Voldemort, all those years ago, who had called him the little Malfoy first.

"Then I will kneel to you," Slytherin said, and before Draco could stop him he was on his knees.  He took Draco's left hand, palm upward so that the new scar showed, and pressed his lips to the spot where Draco's vein had been pierced.  "I swear to you, Draco Malfoy, that I and all those who hold true to me shall follow you and your heirs in war and peace wherever you may lead us, for a thousand thousand generations."

One did not spurn such words, and Draco knew it.  "I accept your vow, Salazar Slytherin, on behalf of House Malfoy, and in return I grant you such protections as I have to give, such power as I have to save, and such governance as I have to endow."  He drew his sword—he had not belted it on, of course, any more than he had dressed, but it hung at his side regardless.  Holding it awkwardly right-handed, he raised the hilt to his lips and the kissed the relic forged into the cross shape.  "Why?" he asked again.  From the hollow of Slytherin's throat a phoenix tattoo stared up at him; Slytherin, after all, had founded the Order.

"Why?  Because I can." Slytherin turned to him, smiling, and Draco thought, Merlin, he looks like Lucius.  And when Slytherin stood, he and Draco were the same height exactly, because what kind of man's hallucination outstripped him?  

"Which card are you?" he asked, and Slytherin threw the deck in the air.  All the cards but one vanished as they fell, and Draco bent to pick it up.  It was the Fool that smiled blankly up at him, the Fool who in prophecy was always the Querent, and when Draco looked up Slytherin was gone and he was lying in his own bed in his own room and Potter was asleep in a chair at his side. 

            "Harry," he tried to say, but his throat was so dry it set him coughing.  Which successfully woke Potter, at least.  And Potter, proving his worth as a nurse, helped Draco sit up and gave him drink of water and eventually a quick, hard kiss on the side of the mouth.  Then he stepped back and looked down at Draco, his green eyes less than friendly.  

"Dray—Malfoy—Christ, what were you thinking?  How could you be so careless?  How could you do that to me, to us?  Don't you know—."  His voice broke.  "Don't you now how much I love you?  There is nothing you cannot say to me, nothing I would not prefer to this."  He lifted Draco's wrist, pressing his lips to the place Slytherin had kissed in the dream, and after a moment he drew back, his face puzzled.

Draco followed his gaze.  There was no trace of the new scar on the inside of his wrist, on the back of his hand.  It was gone as if it had never been.  But Snape still had the scars on his throat, from all those years ago.  "S'okay," he lied to Potter, not feeling up to explaining that Salazar Slytherin had turned up and healed it personally.  And it was okay, it was more than okay.  It was as if some weight he had barely been aware of had been lifted with the scar.  For the first time in months, he could breathe.

"Cruciform," Snape said later, less grimly than was his usual wont.  "It causes periodic depression, Malfoy, certainly they told you that."  He turned his dark stare on Potter.  "They can give you pamphlets about it, you know.  What to look for."  He seemed to be implying that Potter should have made it his business to find out, should have been able to prevent this ever happening.  "They have Potions to treat this; with a little foresight it could all have been prevented.  (This made Potter blush, and was probably unfair; Draco had the feeling that Slytherin was most to blame of all.)

After all that, life went on, even if one had not been sure one wanted to go on with life; Draco found his classes eager, almost grateful for his return, and his fellow teachers hanging on his every word.  And in the end of February, one of the Hufflepuffs, a tiny second year girl he did not teach and could not remember having seen before, came to him in tears.  Her story was nothing spectacular; she was no Ista—simply a lonely child, who wanted an adult to listen to her.  Why she had chosen Draco Malfoy to be that adult, was another matter entirely.  Yet she kept coming back, and Draco found that he rather liked the role of confidant.  He would never get to play the father with his own children, and sometimes he was almost sorry.  A small part of him, too, wondered if there was not some use he could make of girls like this one.

On the first of March his heir was born:  nine months and two weeks and no doubt the first time the Mudblood had ever been late with anything.  Draco and Ron and Potter spent the night in hospital, solely because Potter thought that Hermione would appreciate their support.  Draco knew of bridges in more need of support than Hermione, but went along with it since he would need to be there anyway.  Ron and Hermione had had some sort of rapprochement, and could now be in the same building without fireworks.  Draco rather thought that might change when the Mudblood realised how pissed Ron was; neither he nor Potter could stop giggling when the three of them were escorted in to meet the new child.  

Draco had to admit that for a Malfoy, the baby was awfully red and squirmy; he took it from its equally red mother a bit gingerly.  When it did not immediately burst into tears, he managed to get hold of himself and recall what he had meant to do.  It was critical that none of the others catch on in time to stop him, but as two of them were drunk and the third wore nothing but a paper hospital gown with no back he felt relatively safe.  During the night he had worked out the logistics; now he managed to slide the knife down from his sleeve and close his fingers around it.  A few drops of blood were all that was necessary, and he let the knife slide back into his sleeve as he raised his cut fingers to the baby's forehead.

            Gently he drew a cross on the baby's delicate skin.  "By right of blood I claim this child as my heir," he said, and the others looked up, "and as is my right as her father I name her.  Rain Lucia Pegasus Malfoy, heir in her turn to all the Malfoy estates and titles, and to all that is due the Malfoy name."  He juggled the baby, nearly dropped her, and slid the Malfoy signet from his middle finger on to hers.  It fit her as perfectly as it had him.

            In a superhuman effort Hermione was out of the bed and snatching the baby back while the others stood staring blankly (no doubt Ron was just working out that when he married Hermione his first child would bear the Malfoy name).  "How dare you, Draco Malfoy!" she screamed.  "How dare you name by baby Rain!"  The baby began to cry.  Draco turned and ran, Potter (Seeker's reflexes coming into play) on his heels. 


	13. Thirteen

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES  
  


_He offered her an orgy in a many mirrored room   
He promised her protection for the issue of her womb   
She moved her body hard against a sharpened metal spoon   
She stopped the bloody rituals of passage to the moon_

_--"Death of a Ladies' Man," Leonard Cohen_

Thirteen

            "Thirteen.  Anyone know what thirteen means?" Draco asked.  "The number thirteen?  Come on, not one of you is Muggle born?"  Timidly, a boy in the back raised a hand.  "Yes," Draco said, glancing discreetly at the seating roster on the desk.  "St. John Carmichael?"  

            And he stuttered, in addition to his unfortunate name.  "B-b-bad luck?"

            "Excellent!"  Draco did his best to keep his impatience in check.  He must have been successful; the boy gave him an enormous smile, revealing a mouth full of silver braces and red and gold rubber bands.  It baffled him that Dumbledore made speeches about cruelty and unity and did not condemn this one's parents.  Surely they must have known what they were doing to their son?

            He wrote the number on the blackboard, checking it against his notes to be sure he'd not drawn it backward.  "Thirteen.  It means bad luck in a number of cultures; it can also mean new beginnings, and not only bad ones.  Thirteen is a gateway.  Anyone know any other numbers with magical or mystical significance?  Some of you must have at least glanced at a book once or twice?"

            Another hand, and a tentative voice calling out.  "Seven?"  

            "Seven it is!  Seven stands for perfection.  This is Biblical as well, for those of you familiar with the Christian faith.  Any others?"

            "Six hundred and sixty six!"  Not even a hand this time, but that was okay this first class.

            "Right.  But arithmancy deals only with numbers from one to ninety nine, so make that sixty-six.  What does it symbolize?"

            Several hands this time—that was an easy one.  He picked a student at random.  "Yes, you in the middle?"

            "Voldemort!"  Draco's generation had said He-Must-Not-Be-Named; his father might have answered Grindelwald.  Or not, given Lucius' propensities.  Lucius would have been more likely to give Dumbledore's name.  These students were respectful of the old man, but they did not revere him the way Draco's classmates had—the way Potter and company had.

            He took the stack of papers from the desk and divided them, passing a stack to each row of children.  "This parchment contains arithmantical definitions for the numbers one to ninety-nine; you will be expected to have memorized these definitions by the end of term.  Every year one person loses his or her paper and I urge each of you to take precautions not to be that person.  There will be no second chances.  Now, I will need a volunteer—."  A dozen hands went up.  He looked down at the seating chart.  "Willard Weasley."  

            The boy who bounced to the front of the room was the image of Ron at his age; Draco suppressed a surge of dislike.  Ron really had been a horrible child.  This must be Fred's son—he was too old to belong to any of the others.  His eyes were, perhaps, a shade closer together; other than that he showed no hint of his mother's heritage.  Draco had always suspected the twins at least had reproduced asexually.

            "Willard?  Or do you go by Will?"

            "Bill," he answered, shifting from foot to foot.  This was the second Weasel Draco had taught and he'd found they were generally almost pathetically grateful for attention.  

            "Bill, do you have a question you want answered?"  It would be easy—desperately easy—to humiliate the kid there and then; Draco resisted the temptation, knowing that no one, even a Weasley, deserved to be punished solely for heritage.  If the kid turned out to be too much like Fred (possibly George, now Draco thought about it) it would be easy enough to destroy him later on.  If not…if not, there was a possibility he could be useful.

            Bill, clearly, was at a loss.  In the end he asked, "Will I fail arithmancy?"

            Draco laughed and after a moment the other students did too.  "We hardly need to calculate that, I'm afraid," and Bill grinned at him.  At least the boy was a better sport than his father.

            "Okay," Draco continued.  "We need to pick a number to represent Bill.  There are a couple of choices here, and it isn't significant _which_ you choose, only that you understand how and why you've made your choice.  Now, Bill, for himself, will always pick the number one.  Same goes for each of you; if you're asking a question regarding your own destiny, you as the querent are represented by one.  I, on the other hand, might choose ninety—the student, or even seventy-nine, the fool.  You might choose sixty-four if Bill is your friend—it means ally—or twenty six, the flame, if you know Bill well enough to make judgments about his temper.  For today, we'll take ninety.  

            "This is a very simple question—it can be answered by a yes or no.  Therefore we will need only a simple equation to solve it.  Bill plus arithmancy will equal what?  How would you all define arithmancy?"

            A chubby girl in the front row called out, "Prophecy," and Draco smiled.  These kids were so predictable he might as well be feeding them the lines.

            "Not prophecy, exactly," he replied.  "There are no mysteries solved by arithmancy.  All it does is spell out for you what you already know.  So arithmancy can be defined as knowledge, thirty-six, or truth, forty.  I generally use forty.  So, ninety plus forty equals?"  He wrote it on the board.  **90+40=130  
**            "One hundred thirty.  But arithmantical definitions go up to ninety-nine.  Fortunately, this is an easy situation to rectify.  Only the first two numbers are significant.  Therefore, the answer to Bill's question is our old friend thirteen.  Arithmancy is a gateway for him; he'll have bad luck if he fails at it, but if he succeeds it will open up a whole new set of options for him."  He glanced at the clock.  "Thank you, Bill for volunteering.  Time's just about up for today.  Next class on Tuesday, and I expect you to have memorized the definitions for one, thirteen, twenty-four, twenty-six, thirty-six, forty, sixty-six, seventy-nine and ninety."

            When the last of the students had gone he locked the door and began to erase the board.  The voice from the general direction of his desk took him by surprise even though he had been half expecting it.  "So arithmancy's bloody useless, then?" Potter asked, pushing back the chair and standing up, letting the invisibility cloak fall to the floor.

            "Don't swear or I'll have to keep you after," Draco answered.

            "Ooh, Professor Malfoy.  I'll miss Quidditch practice.  Wouldn't you rather just spank me?"

            "I might, at that." Draco moved to pin him against the desk, already half hard at the thought.  He kissed Potter roughly and thoroughly, and when they were both out of breath stopped for a quick feel.

            "It's a good thing we didn't have masters like you when we were at school," Potter said, his voice dripping with false indignation.  "I'd never have learned anything."

            "You didn't learn anything anyway," Draco pointed out, pushed his hips against Potter's.

            "Stop it," Potter protested a little regretfully.  "We're going to be late for dinner at Hermione's as it is.  You know she likes to eat early these days."

            "I'll be done in a moment," Draco said hopefully, "you just stand there and don't move."

            "Nice try." Potter pulled away, moving to unlock the doorway.  They walked slowly, shoulder to shoulder, through the school and toward the front gates.  There was something pleasant about being so well matched; no need for one of them to adjust his stride to the other's, and no need to bend one's head to kiss the other.  Sometimes Draco felt as if Potter were part of himself, the other side of a coin he had been trying his whole life to see.  Sometimes, of course, he felt exactly the opposite.

            On the quidditch pitch the first year students were having their first flying lesson.  Draco glanced over at them and nearly had a coronary; the student nearest them was small, pale, blond and looking curiously their way, damn him.  And Potter, of course, was looking back, and if the situation had not been so desperate Draco might have laughed at his stricken expression.  It answered a question Draco had been afraid to ask for three years and more.

            "Malfoy," Potter demanded as they drew clear of the children.  "That boy—."  Draco lifted an eyebrow, and lit himself a cigarette, buying them both time.

            "That boy is enough like you to be your son!"

            They were through the gates.  Draco took a last drag from the cigarette and said quietly, "Harry, he _is_ my son."  And Apparated.  He landed, stumbling, in the hallway of Hermione's apartment building just outside the door of the flat she shared with Ron.  Potter, a second behind him, caught him by the shoulders and threw him against the wall.

            "Don't lie to me, Malfoy," he panted.  "You don't have any sons!  Three daughters, that's what you have.  And none of them is—none of them—.  What in hell do you mean, he's your son!  Eleven—twelve years ago you weren't even in this country.  Twelve years ago you were in Russia—.  He's her son, then?  Your Russian mistress's son?  But Draco, why didn't you tell me?"

            The door to Hermione's flat swung open and a tiny blond head poked out.  A head as fair as the boy at Hogwarts had, as fair as Draco's own.  Draco said gently, "Potter, we cannot have this conversation here.  We'll have a nice dinner, all right, and go home."  And, to his daughter, "Rain, darling, how have you been?"

            Rain squinted gravely up at him.  "You're late," she announced.  "Have you been fighting?"

            "No," Draco lied.  "Are you going to let us in?  Your Uncle Harry's not feeling very well."

"He's not my uncle," Rain answered, and slammed the heavy door in his face.  She was fast, for a child her age; by the time Draco had caught the doorknob it was too late to stop the door closing.  It clicked and locked with a jerk that nearly dislocated his shoulder.  Regretfully Draco let go the knob and turned to face Potter.  Out of the mouth of babes indeed.

            Before either of them could think of anything to say the door swung open again.  "Sorry," the Weasel said with a trace of a smirk.  "Were you two in the middle of something?"  

            "No," Draco answered, and Harry shook his head vehemently.

            "Well then."  Ron stepped back to let them in.  "I'm sorry about Rain, Hermione's been teaching her not to talk to strange people or something and I think she's found it a bit confusing."  He was smiling as he said, though; he could not have loved a child of his own blood any more than he loved Rain.  Hermione, Draco rather thought he still had doubts about.  

            "Harry, Draco, come in.  You're late; you must know we eat early so that Rain can join us."  

The trouble with Hermione, Draco thought, was that she had no sense of humor at all.  He handed her the loaf of bread Harry'd bought and pressed a kiss in the general direction of her cheek.  "You look well," he lied, not bothering to keep the insincerity out of his voice.  The Mudblood had gained weight and her eyes were puffy and dark.  The Ministry officials were under tremendous pressure; Hermione more than most.  She'd managed to push through Dumbledore's Muggle Reconciliation Bill, and in doing so had lost the trust of the people.  The shadow government was trying to force an election; if they managed it she would almost certainly lose her job.  She deserved to.  

He was taking his bad temper out on Hermione because he was worried about Harry.  More importantly he was doing it in front of Rain, who despite being a spoiled brat was still his daughter and Hermione's.  Draco put on his most pleasant smile—after all his own father had been a politician, it was in his blood—and said, "Introduce us to your guests, Hermione."

She stepped back, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes, and Draco remembered that while she might not be the most sensitive girl in the world, she was smart enough to recognize tension when she felt it.  "Of course, Draco.  You remember Fred and Angelina, don't you?  They were ahead of us at Hogwarts.  Angelina works for the Foreign Service, they only get leave every five years, it's brutal isn't it?"  Draco shook the woman's hand and exchanged nods with Fred Weasley.  He was not sure whether to worry more about being beat into a pulp, or about the Johnson-Weasleys mentioning Russia.  

Fortunately, Angelina seemed capable of carrying the conversation by herself.  Draco took a glass of mediocre red wine from Hermione, helped himself to some cheese and crackers, and sat on the edge of the couch beside Potter.  He avoided meeting anyone's eyes, kept his leg from touching Potter's, and watched Rain smear pâte on the rug, the cat, and herself.  She really was terribly spoilt, he thought; his own parents would never have let a three-year old stay up for dinner with company.  Hermione fancied herself an intellectual, despite her plush government job—but thinking about Rain led him back, inexorably, to Alexander.  

Alexander, conceived in Russia in the snow all those years ago, the child of his exile.  Draco had left Moscow the day Iliana had come to him, face glowing, to tell him of her pregnancy.  Draco had left her because he did not want a child, because he was afraid that the Aurors were closing in, because the longer he stayed the harder it got to leave.  He had left her and the unborn baby and he had not thought of either of them again until the day he saw Violet Devonshire's _Peerage_, and the name Alexander Ivanovitch.

It had not occurred to him, then, that Potter did not know of the boy's existence.  It had not occurred to him that it would matter, because he had never meant what he had with Potter to be permanent.  When his daughters had been born, one after the other and all of them fair, Potter had made rude remarks about his manhood and Draco had ignored him.  It had not been necessary to defend himself, not then.  Somewhere along the line it had started to matter to him what Potter thought, sometime in the last three years.  It had not happened all at once, but it had caught him unaware.

Once he could have told Potter about Alexander quite easily; yesterday when he had seen the boy for the first time, and realized who he must be, he had been quite unable to.  How do you admit to your lover that you abandoned your child?  That in eleven years you have not spared him a single thought?  What kind of man leaves his only son to be brought up by Muggles, and in a foreign country?  There were no words to explain such a sin, not to Potter.  Potter still believed in families.  Sacha Ivanovitch, and the Hogwarts Sorting Hat had put him in Slytherin, because it knew a Malfoy when it saw one.  His son, and Draco hated him for what he was going to do to his relationship with Potter.  

Dinner was interminable (usually the case at Hermione's) and Ron and Draco snuck off to the roof for a quick cigarette.  Ron produced some marijuana, but Draco turned him down a little regretfully.  It would have helped his nerves, but he would need to be sharp to talk Potter 'round.  He leaned against the railing and stared moodily down at the sidewalk.

"What's wrong with you and Harry?" Ron asked.  "I haven't seen you two like this in a long time.  I thought you never fought any more."

Draco put on his best Harry Potter, Boy Hero, voice.  "Oh heavens, yes, Ronald Harry and myself are just two ordinary blokes after all.  Nothing special."  But it never did to forget that Ron had been Potter's friend twenty years before he'd ever spoken to Draco.  "Merlin, Ron, I don't know; it's the same old story, really.  He expects so much from me, and I want to be the person he thinks I am.  And I can't be."

"You know what they say.  You can take the DeathEater away from the Devil, but you can't take the Devil out of the DeathEater.  Or something like that.  If it's any consolation, Dray, I've always thought Harry would be terrible to live with.  He's like my father, you know?  Everything is either black or white."  He threw the end of the joint down into the street, and waved to the old lady with the umbrella who scowled up at him.  "The older I get, the more I appreciate shades of gray."

Draco laughed.  "My father was like that too," he admitted.  " 'If they do not stand with us, Draco, they stand against us!'  He could never see that he didn't have to fight with Voldemort to fight against the Muggles."

"That whole thing is kind of scary, isn't it," Ron sighed.  "I keep hoping Hermione knows what she's doing…"

"Don't we all," Draco answered, a little sadly.  He watched the other man fumbling for a cigarette. Ron was only thirty-four, young for a pure-blooded wizard, but in the moonlight he looked much older.  There was a curious innocence clinging to him still, despite the darkness in his eyes.  It was funny; often they discounted Ron altogether.  It was so easy to forget that he had the best mind of all them, that often he was the most perceptive.  "What do you think will happen?" he asked.

Ron lit the cigarette with a flick of his wand.  Ignoring Draco's question, he asked softly, "What did you want to be when you grew up, Draco?  I wanted to play Quidditch for the Cannons, and after that I wanted to be an Auror."

Draco hated to play Let's Pretend, but there was something about the night, the warmth of Indian summer, that made him go along.  "I wanted to fly Muggle planes," he answered.  "When I was seven or so.  And I wanted to be a pop star.  And after that—after that, I wanted to be Voldemort's second-in-command."

"It's funny, isn't it, how some people's dreams have a way of coming true," Ron said pensively.  "How you dreamed of glory on a white horse under a black flag and Harry dreamed of Voldemort dying and I dreamed of marrying Hermione, and she dreamed of being Minister of Magic, and it all came true?  What Dumbledore wanted—it was beautiful in theory, but I don't think he'll like it much once it comes true."  

"Your brother, Fred?  His wife'll be posted abroad again?"

Ron nodded.  "Why?"

Draco turned away.  "I have a feeling," he said very quietly, "that it will be good to have friends in foreign countries soon.  Friends with—contacts—in the Muggle world.  Friends who're not unfamiliar with methods of making people disappear."

Ron said, lightly enough, "It's always good to have friends like that, I think."  But Draco had seen his face change, and knew he understood.  He would remember, and if things went badly, he would be prepared. 

You saved the ones you could—that was what Draco remembered from the war.  You saved the ones you could, and tried not to feel too guilty about the rest.  You tried not to remember that Greg had wanted to be an Auror, too, or that Blaise had picked out names for her children, or that Pansy had dreamed of doing research on Muggles.  You tried not to remember that while you did your best to get your own family and friends clear, there were a thousand and one families for whom the storm would break without warning.

He followed Ron back down to the living room.  Hermione and Angelina Johnson-Weasley were arguing loudly about isolationism and the wizarding world while Potter and Fred looked on bemusedly.  Draco slipped quietly into the room and sat down on the sofa, so close to Potter that their arms touched.  Potter turned to him and smiled, that rare, sweet smile that Draco loved, and turned it unconvincingly into a frown as he remembered he was meant to be mad.  Hermione paused to shoot Ron an evil glare (she hated him smoking because she felt he was a bad influence on Rain) and Fred took the opportunity to pull Angelina toward the door.

After that, the party broke up quickly.  Rain was curled, asleep, on the hearth rug.  Ron scooped her up and Draco bent to kiss her good night, having learned long ago that it was no use objecting she was sticky.  She took after him and not her mother, but thankfully she was far prettier than he had been, a fragile, steel-willed little monster with the face of an angel.  She was spoiled and rotten and loved, sure of herself the way none of them had ever been.  It made him wonder about Alexander—Sacha—growing up without a father and unaware of his heritage.  Had he been so confident, so young?  But what would his life have been like, if his mother had come to England twelve years ago, pregnant with a war criminal's child?  Surely his life had better in Russia, and surely Potter would believe that.  Even twelve years of distance had not made Draco popular; he knew that he wore his reputation like an albatross around his neck.  He was a killer, a traitor, and a sodomite, and worse he'd dragged Harry Potter down to his own level.  

Silently, side by side, Draco and Potter walked home.  It was not very far:  perhaps six of the city blocks Muggles used to measure distance.  It still made Draco laugh (although it would have cruel as well as imprudent to have said so), that they were so close to living Potter's dream.  A cozy flat up the street from his married best friends, a child that belonged to all of them, a plush job with all the advantages.  And, of course, Draco in his bed.  

Though he'd been at Hogwarts only three days the flat was already a tip.  Draco threw the armload of books from Hermione on the couch and willed the candles lit.  It was warm for September, a comfortable, dry heat unexpected for England.  In the golden starlit glow Potter watched him, and his eyes were the dark angry green of the sea in a storm.  "Why, Malfoy?" he asked, the first words he'd spoken to Draco in hours.  "Why didn't you just tell me?  I don't blame you for it!  You did what you had to, to survive, and anyway it was years before I had any claim on you at all."

From there, of course, it went steadily downhill.  They spent the night screaming at the top of their lungs; Draco broke all the glass in the apartment and Potter turned it into sand.  Draco threw all of Potter's clothes into the fireplace and Potter threw Draco's books out the open window into the street.  They screamed accusations and nasty names until the upstairs neighbors came down and joined in and the downstairs neighbors summoned the police.  They put up a silencing charm and continued until their voices were gone.

Finally, just before dawn, there was nothing else to do but tell the truth.  "I don't know," Draco said hoarsely, all his fancy logic deserting him.  "I really don't.  Merlin, Potter, haven't you ever done anything stupid before?  It wasn't because I don't trust you.  It wasn't because I don't respect you.  I just—I didn't—I don't.  I mean, I do, of course I do."  He hated being wrong.  He hated being in the wrong, and this would have been so easy to avoid.  Sometimes he thought he was his own worst enemy.  "I wanted you to be proud of me," he said at last, looking up at Potter through his lashes.  And when had Potter become a substitute for Lucius Malfoy?

It didn't matter, because Potter had fallen for it.  Hook, line, and sinker.  Draco couldn't decide whether he felt more guilty or pleased.  But it occurred to him that if Potter had been displeased about his secrecy regarding Alexander—a matter that, realistically, was none of his business—he was going to go ballistic when he found out about the Order of the Phoenix.

_A.N.  This is the beginning of the third and final arc of the story (roughly divided into past, present, and future).  As such, it begins in the future—roughly three years after Draco's return to exile.  Thank you to everyone who reviewed; I'm sorry I'm not quicker getting chapters out.  *Ishafel_


	14. Conscientious Objections

EMPTY CHAIRS AT EMPTY TABLES

Conscientious Objections

A blind man could have seen there was trouble coming, but Potter had always been worse than blind, when there was something he did not want to see. On the fifth of October, when the carefully selected Magical embassy was to meet with members of the Muggle Cabinet, Draco cancelled his classes and they drove up to the Lake District, to Malfoy Lodge, the shooting box Draco'd inherited from his father. Draco drove, because even though the new Mini Cooper was Potter's—and just the kind of car Draco would have expected him to choose, too—he drove the way he flew and his Muggle license had been suspended.

They did not talk very much on the way there, because politics was a bit of a sore subject and there was really nothing new to say. It was not an unpleasant silence; Draco had noticed that when he and Potter were not actively trying to brass one another off they actually fit together quite well. When he stopped for petrol he remembered to get Potter cherry coke and chocolate bars, and Potter didn't complain about the new Unforgivables CD he'd confiscated from one of the students.

The lady at the counter of the petrol station made a point of saying what a lovely couple he and his partner were, and Draco turned dubiously to look at Potter. They looked, to him, like any two Muggle men their age. They had not been holding hands, had they? Potter stood by the pump, finger-combing his tangled hair and staring at his reflection in the side mirror. He looked the ass he was; Draco glanced down complacently down at his own tidy leather jacket and flared jeans, recollected himself and thanked her. Relationships of their sort were still so rare in the magical world, despite Hermione's amendments, that they generally passed unremarked.

There were a number of Malfoy properties, both in Britain and on the continent, but the little house in Northern Scotland had always been Draco's favorite, as once it had been his father's. He had brought Potter there once before for a weekend, but they had ended by fighting and Potter had stormed off to Floo home while Draco sat on the stairs and sulked. Sat on the stairs and sulked, watched over by the werewolf heads Lucius had had carefully mounted. Draco had had all of his father's hunting trophies and the Raeburn portrait of his grandmother exiled to the attic, but he had been surprised when Potter had suggested the trip.

When they had arrived he carried the bags up and left Potter sprawled on the featherbed. He had brought with him a few papers to grade, but now he decided to go for a ride instead. His spirited chesnut mare spent most of her time in the stable and would be glad of a run. He had allowed Potter to name her—not without misgivings—and Potter had chosen to call her Cannon, in honor of her orange-red coat, and in disregard of her gender and Draco's feelings.

There had been a dozen horses once, pureblooded beasts renowned for their tempers as well as their speed. Now there was only Cannon, and a black and white pony Draco'd purchased for Rain in a fit of optimism, and which she'd never seen. Hermione despised horses and hunting both, the one as exploitative (dangerous in an election year) and the other as cruel. Draco rather thought Rain would take more after her father and prefer both elitism and cruelty to sappy middle class sentimentality, but he had learned to value peace.

He rode the mare out onto the moors, and when her stride lengthened and she fought for her head he let her run. He spent so much of his time at Hogwarts indoors, sneaking out at night to fly; it was glorious to have the cool autumn wind on his face, the sun at his back. He turned Cannon toward the hills and felt her check obediently as they moved upward, her first exuberance gone. Near the top she slowed to a trot as she began to tire, and he stroked her neck absently. He was thinking of Potter—of how it would be to share simple pleasures like this as well as the more complex ones.

The shadow passing close overhead took him as much by surprise as the mare, and he was still fumbling for the reins when it turned back and was on him. He recognized it, of course, by the way it flew. The hawk in him knew every predator in the sky, and an eagle's flight was distinctive. Despite its size it landed lightly on his shoulder, its talons bruising but not tearing his skin. Cannon froze in startled wonder, and Draco half-dismounted, half-fell free and let the reins drop as he caught his balance. The eagle's beak opened and Draco threw up his free arm to protect his eyes. But it only gave a hoarse shriek, and slowly he relaxed.

Eagles, kings among birds, were seldom used to bear messages; they were proud and difficult to train and one this size must have cost a fortune. Must have cost as much as a fair-sized house, at least. Not a king's ransom, not quite, but close. He could not imagine who had sent it. Gently, carefully, he raised his arm so that his hand was level with his shoulder. The bird moved slowly and with majestically to perch on his wrist, and Draco gasped as he took its full weight. But he could tell it approved; those fierce wild golden eyes were softening. It looked at him as it might have done a fellow bird of prey, and after a moment he ran his fingers delicately down the beautiful feathers of its breast. "Well, cousin," he said to it, "what have you brought me?" The bird dipped its head so that Draco could work the pouch free; the instant he had done so it took flight again, circling once overhead as if in salute before it disappeared into the sun.

Draco's wrist ached and his shoulder throbbed and still he could not stop himself from smiling. He opened the suede bag and tipped its contents out onto the grass: a scrap of parchment, a silver compass, and a gold ring set with onyx. The letter said only, _We beg your protection. _It was unsigned, only those four words and nothing else. The ring was a signet, a phoenix signet, and inscribed, _Lead us to salvation. _And engraved on the back of the compass, _Govern us now and forever._ And these were words he knew, of course, because he had said them three years and a lifetime ago. 'I grant you such protections as I have to give, such power as I have to save, and such governance as I have to endow.' From Draco Malfoy to Salazar Slytherin, a vow to bind the descendants of both for a thousand generations.

He knelt, staring at the three objects, and finally he put the ring on his finger and the paper in his pocket and closed his fingers reluctantly around the compass that was also a Portkey. It had always been his least favorite method of traveling, and this time because he had no idea where he was going it was worse than usual. He drew his sword as the swirling began; there was some slight risk that he might impale himself on it, but surely that was better than landing unarmed. But when the world stopped spinning he was alone, in an empty room with walls paneled in dark wood and windows made of stained glass.

This was an art that had been lost long ago, blowing glass full of moving figures, and Draco had seen such things only in books. He touched the glass gently, marveling at the skill that had gone into such a creation. They were scenes from Slytherin's life, of course: the slaying of the unicorn, the founding of Hogwarts, the binding of the basilisk, the crucifixion in the wood. Draco recognized them at once, and after a moment he realized why. He had, after all, seen them before. He had seen them in his History of Magic book, illuminated on vellum: the windows of Saint Salazar's Cathedral. The windows of a cathedral in the heart of London that had been confiscated by Henry VIII, and burned by Octavius Cromwell, and bombed during the Blitz. He was in the vestibule of a cathedral that no longer existed, in the fabled headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

Draco glanced down at the compass he had been sent. Its arrow pointed toward true north, toward a narrow arch of a door that had just appeared in the otherwise blank inner wall. There seemed to be nothing to do but follow it and after a moment Draco did so. There was no handle on the door but it opened to his touch and he stepped into a vast sunlit space. This had been the nave of the church, once, and he stood just above the sacred space where the altar had rested. Below the dais, where the pews had been, perhaps a hundred people stood in small, knotted groups. They looked like any other people at a party. He recognized many of them at once: his mother, Vincent Crabbe, Parkinsons and Blacks, Goyles, Weasleys and Bulstrodes. These were the elite of the wizarding world, representatives of all the great pureblood houses.

He was not sure who caught side of him first, but one by one all the heads in the room turned toward him, and silence spread like a plague. Cho Chang broke the stillness, moving to meet him. She came bounding up onto the dais, bristling with energy. She was beautiful, delicate as the bits of glass that made up with the windows. Time and the war and her treachery had left no mark on her.

"Malfoy," she said to him, with a brilliant smile that belied her cool voice. "Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix." She put out a hand, which he did not take, and frowned at his rudeness.

"Don't touch me, you little bitch," Draco said pleasantly to her. Perhaps she had been a spy for the Order, and not a Death Eater, but he remembered that frown as the one she had worn when she had helped Voldemort plan his purge. They had called her the Butcher, and even there, in that company, it had not been meant as an honor. Cho took a step back and he moved forward, bent until his lips were level with her ear. "I own you now, Cho," he whispered. "Your master has given you to me." He thought she was going to hit him, at first; he would have liked to hit _her_. It would have relieved his feelings considerably.

But there was a man coming toward them from out of the crowd and Cho was turning, reverence on her face. Draco saw that somehow, through surgery or sorcery, she had had her tongue split; it forked like a snake's. And, of course, there would be nothing more attractive to her master, the snake prince himself. Salazar Slytherin, patron saint of rebels and purebloods and traitors and serpents. He looked less like Lucius, seen in daylight; less like his picture and more like a person. A person who should have been dead a thousand years ago.

"Slytherin," Draco said as neutrally as he could. Slytherin did not offer his hand, but he smiled, the way an Alsatian smiled just before it pulled off your arm at the shoulder. He was a dangerous man, or ghost, or hallucination; he was dangerous and he was Draco's.

"Lord," Salazar Slytherin said and knelt before Draco. One by one the others in the room knelt, until Draco was the only one on his feet. Draco put out his hand and Slytherin took it and kissed the stone of the phoenix ring. "I beg of you, Prince of Swords, lead us to war."

Draco drew him to his feet, thinking frantically. The timing was too close to be a coincidence; something must have gone wrong with the embassy. These were people who had opposed the liaison in principle but been willing to accept it in practice. They were wealthy, pragmatic, and wise: they had supported neither Voldemort nor Fudge's government, and they had survived both. For them to be willing to fight—something must have gone very wrong, because they had a great deal to lose. If they were willing to take on the Muggle world they must be very frightened now.

They wanted him for leadership, because he had not stood aside the last time, but he wondered if that was the only thing they wanted of him. Slytherin stood beside him, dark and tall and proud, and he had been willing to kneel. The first time Draco had seen him he had bidden Draco to save his people. Now it seemed he meant it. The moment called for a stirring speech, and all Draco could think of was platitudes. At last he drew Ferux, held her shining blade to the light. He took the weighty gold compass in his other hand, and raised it so that they could all see it.

"You have called me Prince of Swords," he said, and the room itself amplified his voice, brought it back to him. "And it is you who shall be my sword. We have a war to fight that must be won. It is their world or ours, now. I ask this of you: stand ready, and stand fast. When I call you, come at once."

"When you call us we will come, Prince," Slytherin answered him, and the others, still on their knees, echoed him. Draco knew that they would come. They did not like him or trust him, but they would come.

"Pray that the day never comes when I need call you," he told them, and bent his head to collect himself, and so that they would not see his intention. He was not entirely sure until he did it that he would be able to Apparate, or that they would not try to keep him there. But his first thought had been of Potter, who would want to know this news at once. Dumbledore was in that embassy, and he knew that despite it all Potter still loved the old man. Dumbledore, and Charlie Weasley, and so many of the best and brightest of the wizarding world that had survived the last war—wasted, and for what?

It was tricky, Apparating to somewhere that wasn't anywhere, Apparating to the middle of a field. He stumbled as he found himself again in sunlight, on the side of a hill, in grass as high as his waist and Cannon standing beside him waiting patiently, her bridle broken in three places and the corners of her mouth bleeding. Draco disentangled her from what remained and mounted without stopping to repair it. She seemed to sense his urgency and went as quickly as she could. Draco left her to the house elves to cool out and walked up the drive to the house. He surprised Potter packing their bags into the Mini. He looked tired and angry; it had not been much of a holiday, a few hours of sleep and news like that, and probably wondering where Draco had gone on top of it.

When he saw Draco he put down the suitcase and came over to him at once and hugged him, hard. It was a rare display of affection from a man uncomfortable with such displays and Draco was glad of it. He pressed his cheek against Potter's and held onto him tightly, and asked, "Then you know?"

"I know," Potter's voice was muffled, and he said it into Draco's shirt collar. "You know, too?"

"Only the fact of it," Draco answered, "and none of the details." He didn't say why and Potter didn't ask.

Instead he said, "They're holding the embassy hostage indefinitely. Apparently it's their policy not to negotiate with hostile nations. Their parliament is meeting right now to draft a declaration of war. Hermione's frantic—the government's fallen, there will be an election tonight. I've got to go, all the Aurors have had leave suspended indefinitely. I'm supposed to Apparate straight to the Ministry."

"Okay," Draco caught his breath and forced his voice steady. "You go on, and I'll drive the car back. I love you." He had never said it before to Potter, except in bed, but the words sounded right, natural. He was glad he had gotten them out. Merlin alone knew when they'd see each other again, if they'd both survive.

"I love you, too," Potter said back, with no theatrics, another first. Things were serious indeed. "I'll owl you when I know anything."

"Be careful," Draco told him, kissing him goodbye. The house elves could think what they liked. When Potter had gone he climbed into the car and set off. The drive had taken him three and a half hours that morning, more or less obeying Muggle and natural laws. Fortunately he and Ron had been able to make certain adjustments to the car while Potter had been at an Auror's Expo; with a little bit of luck and a good deal of magic he ought to make it in less than an hour.

Potter flew by instinct and he drove the same way. Draco had had to work to learn to fly, but cars made sense to him in a way nothing else had. He pushed the Mini hard, and it responded well—quicker than a flying carpet, smoother than a Skyhawk 2010—and it never left the ground. There was little risk of being pulled over, at the speed he was traveling, but he used an Obscuring Charm anyway. Safety lay in the details. He had been trying to explain that to Potter for years.

Draco left the car in Hogsmeade and walked back to Hogwarts. He hadn't heard yet from Potter, and he couldn't stand the thought of the empty, quiet flat. He was rather hoping to catch students smoking marijuana or making out in the grass; it would have been nice to have the chance to ruin someone else's day. As it happened, he saw no children at all until he reached his office. The corridor was nearly dark, and he was fumbling with the combination spell, too lazy to use an illumination charm, when he realized there was someone else there.

His wand was in the back pocket of his jeans, but Draco was running on enough Red Bull and adrenaline to light all of England. The boy in the hallway threw up an arm to shield his eyes, but Draco had seen enough of his face to recognize him. It was a face he'd have known anywhere; it was his own face. "Alexander," he said resignedly.

"Sacha," the boy corrected him sullenly. "Only my mother calls me Alexander."

"Was there something you needed?" Draco asked him. Maybe the boy was lost. And maybe the Muggles were preparing to surrender. Surely unlikelier things had happened. He sighed and resisted the urge to look at his watch. It had been a long day. "Look, why don't you come in and sit down?" The lock on the door refused to yield; sometimes when he was upset he mixed numbers up. He muttered a curse and hexed the door off its hinges. Dumbledore was likely to be incapacitated for some time.

Behind him the boy made a small breathless sound, either fear or astonishment. "Sacha," Draco said to him reluctantly, "Sit down." There were two chairs in the front of the office, and he moved the pile of file folders from the second and sat, too, so that he and the boy were facing one another. For a moment neither of them said anything. It was one of the most uncomfortable silences Draco could remember. He waited, hoping the boy would break first. It was impossible to guess what he wanted. Acknowledgement? A share of the inheritance? A father? The visit could not have been worse timed; there was almost certainly going to be a war.

"What is it you want?" he asked finally, when it had become clear Alexander was willing to wait indefinitely.

"Who are you?" the child demanded. "Are you my father?"

Draco thought of Potter at eleven, scrawny and awkward and rude, all elbows and knees and lost puppy eyes. Alexander had a little more self-possession, but not much. He opened his mouth, and closed it again abruptly. This child's conception had been an accident, nothing more; he owed him nothing, not an explanation, not even a moment's kindness. He would be justified in throwing him out, should he choose to do so. Except, of course, he couldn't bring himself to do it. Potter had worn off on him; only a Gryffindor would admit to this. "You're my son."

His only son, begotten and forgotten, but Sacha was a Malfoy through and through; was persistent and arrogant and foolish. He stood up, turning his back on the boy, and drew the invisible sword at his side. He closed his fingers around the blade, felt blood well up almost instantly. He was remembering Rain, the daughter he knew and loved, and the other two daughters he had never seen, whose lives lay elsewhere. He was remembering the promise he had made before the Order of the Phoenix, and the war that they might none of them survive.

Alexander gasped when Draco touched bloody fingers to his forehead but he did not flinch. Draco could not remember the words, not exactly, but he knew that it was intent that was important. "By the blood of the Malfoys I consecrate you Sacha Ivanov Malfoy, heir to all attendant claims and privileges." His own father had acknowledged Severus so, and been betrayed. But Draco could not bring himself to be sorry that Alexander was alive, or even sorry that he knew Draco was his father. He wrapped his hand in the edge of his cloak and smiled at the boy and Sacha smiled back a little tentatively.

It was dark when Draco opened the door to the flat he shared with Potter and dropped the keys on the counter. The place was a tip, as always, but Draco had learned to move through the mess without seeing it. He dropped his books on the sofa and his overnight bag in the hall and eased open the bedroom door. Potter was sprawled on the bed, sleeping heavily, the Time-Turner still clutched in his hand. They'd sent him back to have a rest; things couldn't be so bad as all that. Draco undid his jeans and shrugged off his leather jacket and slid carefully in beside him. Potter rolled toward him without really waking up and Draco curled into the familiar warmth and fell instantly asleep. For a few hours, at least, the world could take care of itself.


End file.
